Dominic Sandbrook

The disaster at Grenfell Tower, in which at least 58 people are believed to have died, seems certain to be remembered as one of the defining tragedies in modern British history.

Like Aberfan in 1966, when a colliery tip collapse killed 116 children and 28 adults, or hillsborough in 1989, when 96 football fans were crushed to death, it seems at once an appalling act of God and an indictment of years of neglect.

There are serious questions to answer. Kensington and Chelsea council, the builders, architects and management company have come in for blistering criticism, and Theresa May was surely right to respond to the growing anger by ordering a public inquiry.

Hysteria

That the disaster occurred in Britain’s richest borough, a short walk from some of the most expensive homes in the country, seems monstrous.

And not even the Government’s keenest allies could deny that Mrs May’s response has left much to be desired — largely, I suspect, due to her sobriety and reserve, which can be great handicaps at times of heightened passion.

Still, there should be no rush to judgment. Finding out precisely what happened and why — and who, if anyone, is to blame — will surely take months, if not years.

It will also take clear minds and sober conclusions. So even amid the community’s agony and the relatives’ grief, the authorities must not yield to hysteria. Which is what makes the hijacking of genuine grief by a hard-Left cabal intent on making political capital out of suffering so shameful.

For what we have seen is the peddling of ‘fake news’ propaganda, political hypocrisy and brazen exploitation by the farLeft. Indeed, we even had the shocking spectacle of the Labour leader urging people to ‘occupy’ vacant houses, as if we were living through the Russian Revolution.

I have been shocked by the speed and cynicism with which the hard-Left, including some of Jeremy Corbyn’s most vociferous supporters, have seized on the Grenfell Tower disaster for their selfish political ends.

Look at any picture of the protests that erupted on Friday and you see it immediately. Amid the placards, the fanatical Socialist Workers Party messages stand out: ‘Tories have Blood on Their hands’, ‘Kick Out the Tories’.

As one eyewitness remarked of the march on Westminster, some of the most vociferous protesters were ‘a bunch of white middle- class students’ who were handed their signs by hard-Left activists.

As seasoned observers will know, the SWP are the vultures of modern political life. No sooner has a public tragedy occurred than they descend in droves, placards in hand.

But the SWP have not been alone in exploiting this disaster for their own ends. Among the activists who attempted to invade Kensington Town hall on Friday were several people in red T- shirts proclaiming their allegiance to Momentum, the hard-Left group set up to support Mr Corbyn.

The protest was organised by a ‘businessman’ called Mustafa al-Mansur, who lives outside the borough in haringey, north London, and says one of the victims was a family friend. But Mustafa al-Mansur is not just any concerned businessman.

he is an experienced political activist who was once spokesman for the notorious Finsbury Park Mosque in Mr Corbyn’s Islington constituency, a venue that had been linked with ‘hate preacher’ Abu hamza.

Mr al- Mansur was briefly arrested ten years ago — and released without charge — by the police in connection with terrorist offences. Today, he is a tireless campaigner for Mr Corbyn, whose ‘impeccable character, dignity and principled politics’ he has praised on Facebook. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. even so, Mr al-Mansur is hardly a disinterested observer, moved by the suffering of the Grenfell Tower families. he has sought to whip up public anger for his own political purposes.

Chillingly, it is clear the protesters have no intention of stopping there. A Marxist group called the Movement for Justice By Any Means Necessary is calling for a mass march on Westminster on Wednesday to coincide with the State Opening of Parliament, urging supporters to ‘ walk out of school, take the day off, call in sick, strike’ to ‘take down this rotten Government’.

Think about that. They are asking children to ‘walk out of school’ to topple a Government that won the most votes and seats in a free and fair election less than a fortnight ago.

That they are billing it as a Day of Rage says it all. This is not ordinary political activism, and it has nothing to do with the tragedy the organisers are exploiting so callously.

Riots

This is violence for its own sake, cynical and horrifyingly nihilistic. They will not be satisfied until they have staged a re-run of the appalling riots that convulsed the capital in the summer of 2011.

even more disturbing is that these developments are taking place in a climate of wild conspiracy theories and Left-wing hysteria whipped up by posturing celebrity cheerleaders for Mr Corbyn.

Much of this, I think, is rooted in a broader culture of paranoid Left- wing conspiracymongering, which has fuelled the Corbyn movement.

Take, for example, the semiliterate hard- Left, Corbynbacking website Skwawkbox, which claims the Government has gagged the Press under a ‘D-notice’ from reporting the true death toll for reasons of ‘national security’.

That claim, promoted on Twitter, then picked up by the evolvePolitics and Novara Media websites — both of which support Mr Corbyn — went viral on social media at the weekend.

This is nonsense. But it is dangerous nonsense read by thousands of credulous, idealistic youngsters.

Any responsible Labour leader — Attlee, Wilson, Blair, Brown — would have spoken out to lessen the hysteria.

Horror

But it is a measure of Jeremy Corbyn that, far from trying to calm people’s passions, he went on TV yesterday renewing his claim that people should seize empty houses and flats in Kensington and Chelsea for the homeless of Grenfell. ‘Occupy, compulsory purchase [them], requisition [them], there’s a lot of things you can do,’ he said.

This is not leadership. It is the worst kind of populist rabble-rousing.

I believe the Government has two responsibilities. One is to rise to the challenge of the moment, understanding and reflecting public horror at the disaster, meeting the needs of the stricken families and offering decisive leadership.

But it is also time for Mrs May and her ministers to fight back against the torrent of propaganda. As the past few days have shown, there are no depths to which the far-Left will not sink, no tragedy they will not exploit, in their love of anarchy and lust for power.

And as their political posturing submerges the reality of the Grenfell Tower fire, the genuine suffering of residents will be overlooked or dismissed. They deserve better than to see their grievances turned into ammunition for the renta-mob anarchists who swarm behind Mr Corbyn’s banner.

For their sake, it is time for the Government to get a grip. Britain needs answers — it does not need riots.

Grenfell Tower is a national tragedy. But nothing could do more damage to the victims’ cause than for it to become the trigger for a revolution.