UK riots and Jan 6 US riots tell us one thing: democracy needs all the help it can get!

There’s no amount of counter-protests and show of community spirit that can undo the terror & fear that minorities were put through in the UK over the past week. It will impact them for a generation. Knowing you’re in a country where a group of people can suddenly take over the streets and burn things down just because they claim they are not being listened to, is not something anyone can forget quickly. And to know that those same people didn’t come from Mars, they are teachers, shopkeepers, neighbours etc. And they will always hold those hateful beliefs.
It is great to know that the overwhelming majority of people in the UK do not share those repugnant views and will always stand up to the haters, but at the end of the day, minority communities should not have to rely on others shielding them. They should be able to live without fear in the UK.

For those politicians and celebrities and other influential people who have continued to say: “well, it was always coming, people are frustrated with the level of immigration and do not feel the government is listening to them”. OK. Fine. But we are a DEMOCRACY! If people have a grievance, we have a process. You go to your MP to register your grievances. If your MP do not listen or take action, you get to vote them out of office every 4 years. If your vote doesn’t affect the changes you want, it simply means it is not what the majority want. That is how democracy works. There is no option for violent rioting and intimidation. The excuse above, is not tenable and should never be a reason put forward by a Member of Parliament. It is totally unacceptable and there should be significant consequences (those MPs should face a recall and deselection).

The job of an MP should be to diffuse situations such as what occurred in the UK last week. The violent riots should have been roundly condemned by everyone. There cannot be any equivocation about it. Issues that people say they are concerned about, needs to be raised in parliament by their MPs. Protests should be registered with the police and done lawfully. Any other impromptu gathering should be immediately dispersed by a specialist unit the government is now putting in place, albeit after the fact. But it will likely come in handy again, as it is unlikely that last week will be the last time racism will manifest in form of violent riots in this country. We need to – in schools & homes – begin teaching the next generation to understand that nobody in the UK (white, black, brown of whatever other colour) is allowed to intimidate others. Frustrated or not. We are not a third world country. The embarrassment – to our image globally – caused by last weeks’ yobbery, is going to stick for decades. It really is most regrettable. It is one thing for people to choose to be hateful and chat about it at their dinner table, it is quite another, to take it to the streets and send us, as a nation, back to the 1960s! We must not stand for it. We cannot tolerate it. And the government now has a responsibility to make sure it never happens again! The government must monitor all the far-right sites, infiltrate the various groups, must be a step ahead, to snuff out any attempt or plans for public violence. It simply cannot be allowed to happen ever again in the UK