Southport’s MP has said the government “must do more” to support towns such as Southport a year on from last July’s attack and riots.
Patrick Hurley, Southport’s Labour MP, had been elected just weeks before the attack and rushed back from Westminster after hearing the news.
Describing Southport’s close-knit community, he said: “Lots of people know each other, and what happened with the attack last year, we had over 20 girls in the room. When you get a gathering of that number of kids in a town like Southport, everybody knows somebody who has been affected.
“There’s a lot more to Southport than what happened. But it will always be a part of the town’s story and history. But we can move on and remember it at the same time.”
He said the “emotional outpouring” displayed by the community during the clean-up after the riot was the “manifestation of Southport’s community spirit”.
However, he warned the government “must do more” to support communities where riots took place across the country last summer.
A paper published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on Tuesday found that the loss of shared community spaces – from youth clubs and leisure centres to high-street pubs and piers – is leaving communities more vulnerable to far-right influence.
He told The Independent: “The civil disobedience we saw last summer was overwhelmingly in small towns like Southport, such as Stoke-on-Trent, Tamworth and Rotherham. It appears that what these places all have in common is that they’ve all been on the sharp end of public service cuts in austerity years, and they feel like they’ve not been given a fair crack of the whip over the last 20 years.
“It’s very clear that, while there are no justified concerns that could lead anybody to throw a petrol bomb at a police van, there are nevertheless reasons why people are angry with an economy and a government that prior to last July, didn’t listen to them, which took money and funding away from them.”
It comes after it was recently warned that protests which have turned violent recently are taking a “massive toll” on police forces across the UK, as fears rise over the prospect of another summer of riots.
Mr Hurley added: “I think it’s incumbent on this government now to reverse those years of austerity and to make sure towns like Southport and other places that either suffered riots or shared commonalities with places that did are given a much better economic deal.
“I think we need to do much more to make sure people realise this is a government on their side because otherwise people might decide to take matters into their own hands again.”
A government spokesperson said: “The disorder that affected communities across the UK following the Southport tragedy highlighted the need for a new approach to community cohesion.
“It’s clear that central government has lacked strategic focus on social cohesion for many years, which is why this government is working to develop a longer-term strategy to tackle divisions in our communities and build common ground.
“One of the most effective ways to respond to the frustrations that fester is by improving peoples’ lives, and the places in which they live, and through our Plan for Neighbourhoods we are already investing £1.5 billion across 75 areas in the community services local people need and making real improvements they can see on their doorsteps and in their communities.”
