Really appreciated this piece. As horrific as the situation was, you really can empathise with both sides. There are significant cultural differences in these countries insofar as the norms re: courtship/gender roles/age of consent, and we can't bury our heads in the sand about it in the interest of not appearing racist. There's nothing racist about acknowledging that people might need time and support to learn the "rules" of another culture. There are also people really struggling in Merseyside with the cost of living and it makes sense that they're feeling resentful of this apparent "free ride" that some non-citizens are getting. I fully support helping asylum-seekers, but the politicians can't just go, "Ah well. Different pot of money, you see!" and leave it at that. That's not an answer that's comforting anyone in this city who's deciding between food and heating. The constant lack of transparency and outright denouncing of their views just adds fuel to these fires.
What has the world come to. I’d heard about the video shared on social media and believe that due to Chinese whispers it went viral for all the wrong reasons. As you pointed out there seems to be parts missing from the video. The asylum seekers had no choice where they were placed. Locals had no choice in who they have for neighbours. Let’s face it Suites needed refurbishing and I know for a fact they’ve done this because the 1 year contract they’ve got will pay for it. I was personally told this by a member of staff. Lack of education and understanding help the far right and their ilk continue to increase fear and hostility towards people fleeing countries destroyed by war. These types of incidents will only increase. As a philosopher once said’ The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’
Migrants come from massively different cultures compared to western nations. In alot of places for instance, women are at best second class, useful only for breeding male offspring. Some countries have no requirement to register the birth of daughters for instance. So when they get placed (or dumped) in hotels in groups like this, do they get any support with regard to teaching them the cultural differences, the do's and don'ts of a country. Like not staring at women, they may be so used to all women being covered except mother & sisters within the home that maybe it's such a shock they can't help but stare. Female children are also considered for marriage. So there's potentially huge changes they have to be aware of, they should'nt be left to wander and find out by mistake. Is that support there though?
Same really for the locals. Do they get informed that groups of migrants will be housed locally, do they get support in explaining who these migrants are and how cultural differences may make some behaviour seem at odds with the locals. Is there any interaction with local authorities to explain the situation? Are they provided with contact details of a dedicated liason that problems can be reported to (and recorded)?
Lastly, is there any organised community support to help locals and migrants interact?
I’m not sure who is burying their head in the sand so as not to appear racist, but I am sure that it’s possible to call out racism while acknowledging and calling out the appalling cost of living crisis that so many of us are suffering. What is heartbreaking and yet entirely predictable is that the wrong people are being blamed for problems caused by those who would rather cut benefits than invest in working class communities while also housing refugees and asylum seekers in the cheapest possible ‘living’ conditions. That said, can we agree at least to not give racists a free pass?
Excellent in-depth article that I’ve come to expect from The Post. A bit of historical context- the myth that we are all welcoming to people outside the city is not supported by the 1989 Gifford Report which concluded that racism in the city was ‘uniquely horrific’, and subsequent research (e.g. Elmi, 2019) that suggests that many of the problems remain. Like it or not (and I certainly don’t) last Friday was an extreme manifestation of an unpleasant aspect of Scouse culture.
Ofcom should also look at GB News and Talk TV as well as YouTube because these media are spreading hate. Excessive use of the word WOKE is being used to stigmatise humanitarians who support diversity and human rights WOKE is another word for snowflake, do-gooder, pinko, lefty etc. Right wingers love their nasty names and playground insults so if WOKE disappeared another name will occur. Why should these inadequate s go unchallenged. No doubt if the word WOKE had existed in Nazi Germany such people would have ended up in the death camps.
I'm sure Kelvin McKenzie must be feeling smug and justified by the idiocy in Kirkby SCOUSE THUGS TORCH COP VAN would be his take. Make no mistake 10 Feb 2023 was Kirkby's Kristallnacht
Have the people of Kirkby who caused the trouble not got the brain to realise WHITE men abuse teenage girls as well. They try to make out foreigners cause crime but turn a blind eye to crime and vandalism caused by locals born and bred locally Kirkby was the template for Newtown where police crime series Z Cars was serving the 1960s and 70s. Of course other mainly white areas of Merseyside have a crime problem. Not all white Liverpool folk, are bad but saying Liverpool folk are warm and friendly is rose tinted. Remember Olivia and Ashley Dale RIP.
Don't pass on myths without challenging them. Asylum seekers have no choice in where they stay - they're assigned accommodation with no say in the matter. The government doesn't assign places in London and the South East - funny, that. The vast majority are very low budget 'hotels'. The asylum seekers long to work, pay their way, stay occupied - but are banned from doing so and face prison if they get caught. They hate being in the hotels - but again have no choice. The majority of seekers get leave to remain despite an amazingly rigorous burden of proof of persecution or danger requested by the Home Office - because they are real refugees! Blame the people who created this shambles, not the victims.
This is so, so depressing. Not only that, but it’s really hard to see a way out of this given the power of social media to create and/or inflame situations like this. I simply don’t know what the answer is, but I fear our government doesn’t care enough to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m going to St George’s Hall today, but I’m not expecting a big crowd.
Ever since the influx of migrants some of which in the form of asylum seekers began to dramatically increase there have been hundreds of anti-asylum-seekers protests in most cities across Europe with some being carried out with far more violence than the one in Knowsley, so to put this particular protest under the spotlight seemed rather prejudicial. Since The Post already had a piece carrying the question of whether so-called far right groups had anything to do with that protest, no doubt the purpose of this extra piece was to broaden the argument on the subject. With that in mind, to be able to see the whole story of the origin of today's asylum seekers, we should be made aware of the entities which actions had instigated this huge asylum-seeker inundation and economic migrants that are making their way onto our shores.
Apart from tourists and adventurers, the vast majority of humans would rather not move away from their own country if peace, stability and prosperity were being maintained. A little research will show, the majority of asylum seekers as well as some economic migrants, came from countries that have been quite prosperous and well managed by their government , until that is, terrorism began to emerge within those countries, aided and abetted by outside forces, using the usual pretexts to 'intervene' creating instability and chaos across entire territories and many have stayed that way to this day. Apart from the killing and maiming, tens of millions of previously well-off citizens of those countries were displaced (the reason so many of them could afford to pay tens of thousand of dollars/euros to be transported into Europe and the UK). All because certain hegemonic power was looking to maintain its global dominance by foisting their brand of 'democracy' onto lesser nations so that those countries could become their subordinates and be pillaged with impunity and sought to destroy those that resisted.
Apart from that, there has been an increasing number of migrants coming into this country with criminal intents as the many media reports have shown. With social, economic and cost-of-living pressures on the people growing under an inept government that also have no idea on how to deal with the asylum seeker problem, it is perfectly understandable more and more people are venting their frustration and anger on those who came over here as victims of geopolitics.
I've lived in Kirkby for 50+ years. I was there on the evening of the 10th Feb 2023. I took quite a bit of video showing how the evening unfolded. I'll write something up and use the video to tell the story of the evenings shenanigans. I think the sentencing of the men arrested on the protests is politicised.
Merseyside Police rightly claim on Twitter X that they sent nobody to prison. CPS and courts will do that. However, police reports usually seal the fate and police tactics at protests dictate the response of the crowd. The language police use in media reports forms the opinions of people prior to the sentencing. The media often reports in a dishonest manner the events of protests. The Miners Strike of 84 being a point in case. BBC edited out police rushing a crowd of pickets - but just played the miners reacting to the aggression. the police were given a pass to exaggerate the aggression against them without acknowledging their own aggression.
I asked local MP and local councillors to look at the footage I took. They would not. George Howarth MP claimed the protest was sparked by social media. It was sparked by a grown man approaching a schoolgirl. It was not a social media rumour. It really happened.
Local media would not look at my videos. Police never responded to my question as to why they initially used force on peaceful protesters after I sent a link to a video of the incident. Even alternative media outlets were not interested.
For the Labourites in Kirkby the Liverpool Echo report is enough. The Echo reports missed out vital incidents on the evening despite a photographer being there. Councillors and MP chose to dismiss local protestors as thugs and far right. They were not there. I was.
For example - when riot police, without any prior warning, used shields to barge into protestors gathered peacefully near uniformed police lines. We were pushed towards the burning police van that looked ready to explode. I do not know what police were thinking at this point but it was not a good tactic. That antagonised quite a few and from then on in it was a case of police pushing forward and protestors pushing back. The mood darkened somewhat.
One lady near me was in her 70s. The police came at her and others aged 50 - 60+ nearby who were doing nothing wrong. You do not stand next to police lines of body-cam wearing police to throw missiles. In fact we thought we'd be safe there (t a distance from the burning police van) and could calm anyone looking to throw missiles. Video shows this. I saw nothing thrown at that point. We had banter with the police also.
Up until then, the police line was uniformed officers, which indicates the police, at that time did not seem to be concerned about violence. Police got into riot gear further down the road and were moved behind the uniformed line ready to pounce.
Most people there were protesting peacefully. The numbers, all in all, were maybe 2000 +. As trouble broke out many families who turned up - moved to a safe distance. There was at times a carnival atmosphere. Traffic was not hindered on Ribblers Lane. Traffic lights were working and cars passed freely without incident until police apparently closed the road later on.
I'm not going to deny some turned up to likely fight the police if opportunity arose. We would find that on any working class estate, black, white or otherwise. More so in Liverpool as historically, the police have been used against us, be that picket lines or the Hillsborough cover up.
The police van, by the way, was set alight by men in ski masks, with backpacks, dressed in black. It could have been anarchists. Could have been state assets. It could have been anyone. They worked in silence so no accents to reveal if they were even local. They used tools taken from the police van to do this. A crowbar and a pair of bolt cutters.
What concerns people the most is the police's role in historical and present gang based sexual abuse aimed against mostly white girls. This is a sore point for the left who like to imagine anyone raising the matter is doing so for racial reasons. Police also, bound by anti racist sentiments and political pressure - were emotionally blackmailed into ignoring this widespread abuse in many areas. No officers move up rank without adopting the latest political trends of the day. To do so by ignoring sexual abuse is absolutely staggering. It demeans every good officer out there that police are controlled by political whims in this manner.
Whilst people condemn the protest at the Suites Hotel - if you consider it against the historical abuse up and down the UK, perhaps the good people of Kirkby decided to 'nip it in the bud'. We sent a clear message to any migrants or others looking to abuse children that Kirkby is not a place that will sit back and allow things to get to the point we see in Telford or Rochdale. Migrants who do settle here were sent a message. Local paedophiles have been brutally punished here over the years. This has nothing to do with race. The media does not report such incidents for obvious reasons. It might start a trend.
The sentences were political - a message sent to working class communities that we have to tolerate men whose values and beliefs clash with our own in respects of women and children. That the man whose abhorrent behaviour walks free in the UK is a slap in the face to us all. Even Merseyside police said it was 'unfortunate' that the CPS did not charge him. He should have been deported the next day. Had any Scouser gone to his nation and approached a schoolgirl - we'd be in a world of trouble. Rightly so.
The establishment, which has long used working class women and children for their own base needs was given a resounding message by the people of Kirkby that evening. The children of Kirkby are not going to be an easy target like in other parts of the UK. Any gangs here who target children and exploit them will face the wrath Kirkby always has brimming under the surface for sex offenders.
Really appreciated this piece. As horrific as the situation was, you really can empathise with both sides. There are significant cultural differences in these countries insofar as the norms re: courtship/gender roles/age of consent, and we can't bury our heads in the sand about it in the interest of not appearing racist. There's nothing racist about acknowledging that people might need time and support to learn the "rules" of another culture. There are also people really struggling in Merseyside with the cost of living and it makes sense that they're feeling resentful of this apparent "free ride" that some non-citizens are getting. I fully support helping asylum-seekers, but the politicians can't just go, "Ah well. Different pot of money, you see!" and leave it at that. That's not an answer that's comforting anyone in this city who's deciding between food and heating. The constant lack of transparency and outright denouncing of their views just adds fuel to these fires.
What has the world come to. I’d heard about the video shared on social media and believe that due to Chinese whispers it went viral for all the wrong reasons. As you pointed out there seems to be parts missing from the video. The asylum seekers had no choice where they were placed. Locals had no choice in who they have for neighbours. Let’s face it Suites needed refurbishing and I know for a fact they’ve done this because the 1 year contract they’ve got will pay for it. I was personally told this by a member of staff. Lack of education and understanding help the far right and their ilk continue to increase fear and hostility towards people fleeing countries destroyed by war. These types of incidents will only increase. As a philosopher once said’ The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’
Migrants come from massively different cultures compared to western nations. In alot of places for instance, women are at best second class, useful only for breeding male offspring. Some countries have no requirement to register the birth of daughters for instance. So when they get placed (or dumped) in hotels in groups like this, do they get any support with regard to teaching them the cultural differences, the do's and don'ts of a country. Like not staring at women, they may be so used to all women being covered except mother & sisters within the home that maybe it's such a shock they can't help but stare. Female children are also considered for marriage. So there's potentially huge changes they have to be aware of, they should'nt be left to wander and find out by mistake. Is that support there though?
Same really for the locals. Do they get informed that groups of migrants will be housed locally, do they get support in explaining who these migrants are and how cultural differences may make some behaviour seem at odds with the locals. Is there any interaction with local authorities to explain the situation? Are they provided with contact details of a dedicated liason that problems can be reported to (and recorded)?
Lastly, is there any organised community support to help locals and migrants interact?
I’m not sure who is burying their head in the sand so as not to appear racist, but I am sure that it’s possible to call out racism while acknowledging and calling out the appalling cost of living crisis that so many of us are suffering. What is heartbreaking and yet entirely predictable is that the wrong people are being blamed for problems caused by those who would rather cut benefits than invest in working class communities while also housing refugees and asylum seekers in the cheapest possible ‘living’ conditions. That said, can we agree at least to not give racists a free pass?
Excellent in-depth article that I’ve come to expect from The Post. A bit of historical context- the myth that we are all welcoming to people outside the city is not supported by the 1989 Gifford Report which concluded that racism in the city was ‘uniquely horrific’, and subsequent research (e.g. Elmi, 2019) that suggests that many of the problems remain. Like it or not (and I certainly don’t) last Friday was an extreme manifestation of an unpleasant aspect of Scouse culture.
Ofcom should also look at GB News and Talk TV as well as YouTube because these media are spreading hate. Excessive use of the word WOKE is being used to stigmatise humanitarians who support diversity and human rights WOKE is another word for snowflake, do-gooder, pinko, lefty etc. Right wingers love their nasty names and playground insults so if WOKE disappeared another name will occur. Why should these inadequate s go unchallenged. No doubt if the word WOKE had existed in Nazi Germany such people would have ended up in the death camps.
I'm sure Kelvin McKenzie must be feeling smug and justified by the idiocy in Kirkby SCOUSE THUGS TORCH COP VAN would be his take. Make no mistake 10 Feb 2023 was Kirkby's Kristallnacht
Have the people of Kirkby who caused the trouble not got the brain to realise WHITE men abuse teenage girls as well. They try to make out foreigners cause crime but turn a blind eye to crime and vandalism caused by locals born and bred locally Kirkby was the template for Newtown where police crime series Z Cars was serving the 1960s and 70s. Of course other mainly white areas of Merseyside have a crime problem. Not all white Liverpool folk, are bad but saying Liverpool folk are warm and friendly is rose tinted. Remember Olivia and Ashley Dale RIP.
Don't pass on myths without challenging them. Asylum seekers have no choice in where they stay - they're assigned accommodation with no say in the matter. The government doesn't assign places in London and the South East - funny, that. The vast majority are very low budget 'hotels'. The asylum seekers long to work, pay their way, stay occupied - but are banned from doing so and face prison if they get caught. They hate being in the hotels - but again have no choice. The majority of seekers get leave to remain despite an amazingly rigorous burden of proof of persecution or danger requested by the Home Office - because they are real refugees! Blame the people who created this shambles, not the victims.
This is so, so depressing. Not only that, but it’s really hard to see a way out of this given the power of social media to create and/or inflame situations like this. I simply don’t know what the answer is, but I fear our government doesn’t care enough to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m going to St George’s Hall today, but I’m not expecting a big crowd.
Ever since the influx of migrants some of which in the form of asylum seekers began to dramatically increase there have been hundreds of anti-asylum-seekers protests in most cities across Europe with some being carried out with far more violence than the one in Knowsley, so to put this particular protest under the spotlight seemed rather prejudicial. Since The Post already had a piece carrying the question of whether so-called far right groups had anything to do with that protest, no doubt the purpose of this extra piece was to broaden the argument on the subject. With that in mind, to be able to see the whole story of the origin of today's asylum seekers, we should be made aware of the entities which actions had instigated this huge asylum-seeker inundation and economic migrants that are making their way onto our shores.
Apart from tourists and adventurers, the vast majority of humans would rather not move away from their own country if peace, stability and prosperity were being maintained. A little research will show, the majority of asylum seekers as well as some economic migrants, came from countries that have been quite prosperous and well managed by their government , until that is, terrorism began to emerge within those countries, aided and abetted by outside forces, using the usual pretexts to 'intervene' creating instability and chaos across entire territories and many have stayed that way to this day. Apart from the killing and maiming, tens of millions of previously well-off citizens of those countries were displaced (the reason so many of them could afford to pay tens of thousand of dollars/euros to be transported into Europe and the UK). All because certain hegemonic power was looking to maintain its global dominance by foisting their brand of 'democracy' onto lesser nations so that those countries could become their subordinates and be pillaged with impunity and sought to destroy those that resisted.
Apart from that, there has been an increasing number of migrants coming into this country with criminal intents as the many media reports have shown. With social, economic and cost-of-living pressures on the people growing under an inept government that also have no idea on how to deal with the asylum seeker problem, it is perfectly understandable more and more people are venting their frustration and anger on those who came over here as victims of geopolitics.
I've lived in Kirkby for 50+ years. I was there on the evening of the 10th Feb 2023. I took quite a bit of video showing how the evening unfolded. I'll write something up and use the video to tell the story of the evenings shenanigans. I think the sentencing of the men arrested on the protests is politicised.
Merseyside Police rightly claim on Twitter X that they sent nobody to prison. CPS and courts will do that. However, police reports usually seal the fate and police tactics at protests dictate the response of the crowd. The language police use in media reports forms the opinions of people prior to the sentencing. The media often reports in a dishonest manner the events of protests. The Miners Strike of 84 being a point in case. BBC edited out police rushing a crowd of pickets - but just played the miners reacting to the aggression. the police were given a pass to exaggerate the aggression against them without acknowledging their own aggression.
I asked local MP and local councillors to look at the footage I took. They would not. George Howarth MP claimed the protest was sparked by social media. It was sparked by a grown man approaching a schoolgirl. It was not a social media rumour. It really happened.
Local media would not look at my videos. Police never responded to my question as to why they initially used force on peaceful protesters after I sent a link to a video of the incident. Even alternative media outlets were not interested.
For the Labourites in Kirkby the Liverpool Echo report is enough. The Echo reports missed out vital incidents on the evening despite a photographer being there. Councillors and MP chose to dismiss local protestors as thugs and far right. They were not there. I was.
For example - when riot police, without any prior warning, used shields to barge into protestors gathered peacefully near uniformed police lines. We were pushed towards the burning police van that looked ready to explode. I do not know what police were thinking at this point but it was not a good tactic. That antagonised quite a few and from then on in it was a case of police pushing forward and protestors pushing back. The mood darkened somewhat.
One lady near me was in her 70s. The police came at her and others aged 50 - 60+ nearby who were doing nothing wrong. You do not stand next to police lines of body-cam wearing police to throw missiles. In fact we thought we'd be safe there (t a distance from the burning police van) and could calm anyone looking to throw missiles. Video shows this. I saw nothing thrown at that point. We had banter with the police also.
Up until then, the police line was uniformed officers, which indicates the police, at that time did not seem to be concerned about violence. Police got into riot gear further down the road and were moved behind the uniformed line ready to pounce.
Most people there were protesting peacefully. The numbers, all in all, were maybe 2000 +. As trouble broke out many families who turned up - moved to a safe distance. There was at times a carnival atmosphere. Traffic was not hindered on Ribblers Lane. Traffic lights were working and cars passed freely without incident until police apparently closed the road later on.
I'm not going to deny some turned up to likely fight the police if opportunity arose. We would find that on any working class estate, black, white or otherwise. More so in Liverpool as historically, the police have been used against us, be that picket lines or the Hillsborough cover up.
The police van, by the way, was set alight by men in ski masks, with backpacks, dressed in black. It could have been anarchists. Could have been state assets. It could have been anyone. They worked in silence so no accents to reveal if they were even local. They used tools taken from the police van to do this. A crowbar and a pair of bolt cutters.
What concerns people the most is the police's role in historical and present gang based sexual abuse aimed against mostly white girls. This is a sore point for the left who like to imagine anyone raising the matter is doing so for racial reasons. Police also, bound by anti racist sentiments and political pressure - were emotionally blackmailed into ignoring this widespread abuse in many areas. No officers move up rank without adopting the latest political trends of the day. To do so by ignoring sexual abuse is absolutely staggering. It demeans every good officer out there that police are controlled by political whims in this manner.
Whilst people condemn the protest at the Suites Hotel - if you consider it against the historical abuse up and down the UK, perhaps the good people of Kirkby decided to 'nip it in the bud'. We sent a clear message to any migrants or others looking to abuse children that Kirkby is not a place that will sit back and allow things to get to the point we see in Telford or Rochdale. Migrants who do settle here were sent a message. Local paedophiles have been brutally punished here over the years. This has nothing to do with race. The media does not report such incidents for obvious reasons. It might start a trend.
The sentences were political - a message sent to working class communities that we have to tolerate men whose values and beliefs clash with our own in respects of women and children. That the man whose abhorrent behaviour walks free in the UK is a slap in the face to us all. Even Merseyside police said it was 'unfortunate' that the CPS did not charge him. He should have been deported the next day. Had any Scouser gone to his nation and approached a schoolgirl - we'd be in a world of trouble. Rightly so.
The establishment, which has long used working class women and children for their own base needs was given a resounding message by the people of Kirkby that evening. The children of Kirkby are not going to be an easy target like in other parts of the UK. Any gangs here who target children and exploit them will face the wrath Kirkby always has brimming under the surface for sex offenders.