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A number of communities rocked by the most serious riots since 2011 suffer from high levels of deprivation and soaring levels of child poverty.
More than 700 people have been arrested, dozens of police officers have been injured and communities are paralysed by fear, with the violent disorder concentrated in specific parts of the country.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer vowed rioters “will regret” taking part in the violent scenes which have scarred the country over the last week, as more than 6,000 police are on standby for another potential weekend of unrest.
The chaotic scenes across the country were initially sparked by the killing of three children on 29 July in Southport and the social media misinformation about the identity of the knife attacker, who was falsely identified as an asylum seeker.
Thousands of far-right thugs infiltrated communities to attack asylum hotels, mosques, the police and Muslim neighbourhoods and businesses.
Middlesborough, Blackpool, Hartlepool, Hull, Manchester, Blackburn and Liverpool all saw outbreaks of violence and are all in the top 10 most deprived areas by local authority, analysis undertaken by the Financial Times of the government’s Indices of Deprivation showed.
Rob McNeil, deputy director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, told the newspaper: “These are often communities that are already socio-economically deprived, and have high unemployment, which can contribute to a sense that there is competition for scant resources.”
Zoë Billingham, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, told The Independent there was no economic justification for the riots of violence seen over the past week but some of the areas did suffer from high levels of poverty.
“The first thing to say is there is no justification for the riots or violence that has swept through the country over the last week. There is nothing that can justify or rationalise the far-right violence and racism that we have seen in various parts of the country. There is a danger that people can use an economic justification for these riots and that would be incorrect.
“It would be remiss for us not to acknowledge that there is a certain level of deprivation in some of the areas where violence has taken place.
“Deprivation, high levels of inequality and significant budget cuts from austerity can be used as descriptors for some of these places. However, the economic status of an area is not a justification for violence which was whipped up online and does not represent the communities it has impacted.”
A number of other areas that saw violence have pockets of deprivation. In Sunderland one in three children living in poverty, according to the most recent report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
It said 35 per cent of children in Sunderland are in poverty, which is significantly higher than the national average of 29 per cent. The region’s overall poverty rate is 25 per cent, which is again higher than the national average of 22 per cent.
In Rotherham, where far-right thugs attacked a hotel housing asylum seekers, a quarter of residents live within the 10 per cent most deprived areas in England, according to the council’s local plan.
The town’s MP Sarah Champion has previously warned of the issue of child poverty in her constituency, saying that 42.7 per cent of kids were suffering from deprivation.
According to Liverpool City Council, around 63 per cent of the population live in the top 20 per cent of the most deprived areas in England. In Southport, 24 neighbourhoods fall into the most deprived five per cent nationally and five are in the most deprived one per cent.
Figures from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) showed Middlesborough has a child poverty rate of 41 per cent - the highest of any area in the North East.
Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough since 2012, told PoliticsHome a legacy of “rampant inequality” had left the way open to the “terrible behaviours and abuse” of recent days.
He said: “Over these years of rampant inequality, our public services have been so appallingly resourced that it leaves the way open to terrible behaviours and abuse.
“And this was such an opportunity, an excuse for those who know about just how weakened we’ve been over these years to really indulge themselves.”
