Hello and welcome to the midweek edition of The Southport Lead.
On Sunday, for the second time in 15 months, far-right protestors descended on Southport. Instantly, people will take issue with that statement - insisting they were simply ‘ordinary’ and ‘concerned’ people - but the Britain First banners and the Tommy Robinson chants tell a very different story. And when you align yourself to those people, you lose whatever plausible deniability you may have had.
Last summer, the ‘peaceful protest’ which turned into a riot capitalised on the murders of three young children based on false information as an excuse to attack a mosque, loot a shop and attack police officers.
On Sunday, Digital ID and inheritance tax on farmers were supposedly the basis of the ‘freedom march’ which thankfully passed by with much less disorder.
For an afternoon, the town - still recovering from the horror of last year’s attack - was an angry, loud, chaotic mess.
Some businesses closed, others had people stood in doorways watching on with bafflement, and lots of people stayed home in fear of what they may become caught up in. One question remains - why Southport?
Today’s edition takes a closer look at what happened on Sunday and that point in particular.
Southport briefing
🛤️ A man has been jailed after walking one mile along railway tracks. Phillip Colbourne, of Coronation Drive, Great Crosby, accessed the line at Southport station on August 18, and continued alongside the tracks until he was spotted at Birkdale. According to Network Rail, the incident led to seven train cancellations, 10 part-cancellations, and 474 minutes of passenger delays, severely impacting commuter journeys and operational efficiency. At Liverpool Crown Court, the 49-year-old admitted obstructing the railway and was handed a four month and 15 day sentence and ordered to pay £154.
❌ The father of the Southport killer asked a social worker not to share information with the youth offending team, the public inquiry into the stabbings has heard. The message was sent in November 2020 to a member of the Child and Family Wellbeing Service in Lancashire, which ran an early help team which families could voluntarily seek support from. Read more here.
For the second time, Southport needs space to recover
Analysis by Jamie Lopez
On Sunday, Sergio Aguiar completed a half-marathon in Lisbon as preparation for one of the six marathons he is running in memory of his daughter Alice. The nine-year-old was among three girls killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last year in the most devastating incident to ever hit Southport.
In the wake of the attack, riots broke out outside the town’s mosque with walls kicked down, petrol bombs launched, and police officers attacked in response to deliberate misinformation being shared about the killer’s identity.
Fifteen months later, on the same day a grieving dad continued his Herculean effort to honour his daughter and build something hopeful in her memory, his adopted hometown saw its largest police presence since those riots as hundreds of protestors descended and were met by another crowd of counter-protestors.
A town still healing - both emotionally and economically - from the effects of that attack once again at the centre of unwanted attention as chants of ‘you should never trust a leftie with your kids’ and ‘Oh Tommy Tommy, Tommy Tommy Robinson’ were met with those of ‘Nazi scum off our streets’.
Dubbed a ‘freedom march’, it had variously been billed as being a protest against digital ID and inheritance tax for farmers and as being part of the Unite the Kingdom movement which involves the raising of union flags across the country. This movement, which is directly linked to fascist criminal thug Robinson whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been cleverly devised to appeal both those who are simply proud of their home country and those who are nationalistic and to allow each to blur the other.
Likewise, this protest was designed to appear respectable in its intent while still providing a vehicle for the far-right actors to gain an audience - and boy did they use that chance with as many handheld and bodyworn cameras streaming as I have ever seen in once place.
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