Obviously, the violent and racist mob plaguing Thetford must be condemned in the strongest terms.

Some extremely dark stuff, events of a nature that should have stopped forever back in the 1930s, continues to happen in the UK.

From James Ball in The New World:

For the second time in less than three months, there are pogroms in the United Kingdom. Throughout the week, violent rioters in the town of Thetford, in Norfolk, have attacked properties they believed were housing asylum seekers.

On Tuesday night, police had to intervene to protect five men after a mob of 30 to 50 people tried to break into a home. Violence continued through the week, with one police officer being struck by a rock and another bitten by a rioter. As the men were escorted to safety by police, they were exposed to shouts and jeers by the angry mob – “get out”, “bye”, “refugees not welcome”.

There are at least two abhorrent sides to thinking about what’s going on here.

First, and most importantly, the event itself. I cannot imagine the horrors that the residents of the houses being attacked felt as the rabid mob, screaming hate-filled slogans including tenets of entirely unfounded racist conspiracy theories, attempted to break into their houses - presumably with the intent of subjecting them to violence at least as viciously as they attacked some of the police bravely doing their job with spit, rocks and teeth.

Two officers were taken to hospital after responding to the scene at Clover Way that evening, which police described as “fast-moving and volatile”.

Some of those under siege had to flee from their houses for several nights.

Secondly, until I saw Ball’s article, I hadn’t heard much about this. As he notes:

This comes just weeks after families were burned out of their homes in Belfast by violent mobs, but this might well be the first you are hearing of it: the Thetford riots barely made national headlines.

He did note that the Daily Express was one of the few newspaper that covered it prominently. But not in the way that any reasonable journalist conceivably should have.

One exception came from the Daily Express, which sent a reporter to a scene of violence fuelled by online anti-refugee rhetoric.

Having seen this first-hand, that reporter decided the most important thing he had seen was a discarded box of supplies near a bin. “The jaw-dropping list of everything asylum seekers in Thetford were ‘given for free’”.

What’s happening here? Is the government really handing out free laptops, vacations, gold watches or something? I mean, show some common sense.

That “jaw-dropping” list included a single plate, knife, fork and spoon; one mug and one glass; two small pans; basic bedding and towels. The supplier was a company which provides institutional “economy” products to hospitals and prisons – the bare essentials to live and to cook.

Just imagine if the dynamics of the situation were the other way around. We’ve seen what happens when violent crimes take place where the suspect is - even incorrectly - thought to be an asylum seeker. Murders were thankfully not committed in this case, although I tend to think not for want of trying. If nothing else there would have been endless headlines, endless condemnations.

However, the actual response of the government in charge has been fairly despicable:

The Labour government, in trying to appease the mob, inflamed it instead.

…

Even with violent mobs in the street, the government – technically a brand-new government – feels the need to triangulate on immigration in a way it doesn’t on any other issue. The violence this week was conducted by a small mob that rarely, if ever, numbered over 100 people.

When minority elements of a large, peaceful protest clash with police, politicians do not spend time stressing how legitimate the concerns of the wider protest are. They condemn the violence, and the public applauds them for it. But when a violent mob is motivated to attack asylum seekers, clear and emphatic denunciations are nowhere to be found.

It goes without saying but it is, in fact, not only OK but absolutely essential to condemn violent and racist crimes in the strongest possible way.