‘Absurd’ Parliament Report Faces Backlash over Claims of No ‘Two-Tier’ Policing in Southport Riots

A Parliamentary report claiming that there was no evidence of “two-tier policing” in response to last year’s protests and riots over the Southport child murders has been blasted as “absurd” by commentators.

On Monday, the Home Affairs Committee in the House of Commons published a report which asserted that the police response to the unrest following the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift dance party by a Rwandan-heritage teenager was proportionate and did not demonstrate police bias.

The anger over the mass stabbing resulted in 246 protests and counter-protests across the UK, the report found, 88 of which were found to be “significant”. To date, there have been 1,804 arrests and 1,072 charges over the riots, including some for merely posting on social media.

Due to the extraordinary number of arrests, the government also embarked on a scheme to release criminals from prison to make room in Britain’s overcrowded jails to house those convicted over the riots.

The report, finding no evidence of bias, said per Sky News: “Those participating in disorder were not policed more strongly because of their supposed political views but because they were throwing missiles, assaulting police officers and committing arson.

“It was disgraceful to see unsubstantiated commentary about ‘two-tier policing’ undermining the efforts of police officers who served bravely in the face of violence.”

The chairwoman of the committee, Conservative MP Dame Karen Bradley, said: “There is a difference in how police must deal with violence and how they deal with peaceful protests.

“This needs to recognised by commentators who all too readily spread claims of ‘two-tier policing’. Organised disorder is rightly met with a robust response; any implied equivalence with planned non-violent protests is simply wrong.”

However, despite the apparent attempt by the MPs to compare the Southport riots to non-violent protests, others have long pointed to disparities with other riots, including some which preceeded the Southport crackdown by just weeks or months, such as those in the Harehills area of Leeds, Yorkshire, by members of the Roma community.

During the outbreak of violence, police were accused of “retreating” from the Roma riots after coming under attack, while a double-decker bus was torched, a police car was overturned, and fires were set.

Others, such as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, have highlighted then-opposition leader and current prime minister Sir Kier Starmer kneeling in his parliamentary office in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter rioters in 2020.

Mr Farage also previously compared the response to the Southport riots to those which broke out in the Muslim community in Manchester just weeks earlier, after a deceptively edited video falsely appeared to show unprovoked and “racist” police violence against Muslims in the local airport.

The Reform boss claimed that the soft approach from the police and the government, as well as the months it took to charge the Muslim men accused of being involved in the assaults on the airport police officers, demonstrated “two-tier” justice in Britain.

This assessment was shared by Lord Goldsmith, who remarked at the time of the crackdown on the Southport riots that the government’s response “couldn’t contrast more starkly with [previous] reactions to the Manchester riots where violent thugs demanded instant justice ‘or else’ [and] where Ministers bent over backwards to explain that they ‘understood’ the anger.”

Monday’s report from Parliament was widely criticised on social media. TalkTV host Kevin O’Sullivan said: “Absurd MPs ludicrously conclude there was no evidence of two-tier policing at Southport. Eh? This is just stupid, the deliberate denial of the obvious truth.”

Social Policy Analyst Dr Rakib Ehsan told GB News that the report was attempting to “gaslight” the public, saying: “To say two-tier policing is some kind of myth is hugely disrespectful.”

“This is a disgraceful report, hugely disappointing. The issue of two-tier policing should be treated with the utmost seriousness, and that [should] include professional research looking into it,” he added.

For his part, Nigel Farage said: “I do not accept the findings of the report whatsoever. Not just two-tier policing, but two-tier justice as well.

“There are people who said very unpleasant things in the heat of the moment on Facebook going to prison very, very quickly – others on the other side of the argument, shall we say, not being treated in the same way.

“Just think, a few weeks before we had the Manchester Airport attacks and those prosecutions took many, many months to come through.”

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