Stop smearing Brexit voters as haters, Diane

N o one could disagree with Croydon MP Gavin Barwell when he describes the gang of savages who attacked a teenage asylum seeker in South London as ‘cowardly and despicable scum’.

The 17-year old Kurdish Iranian suffered horrific injuries, including a fractured skull and a blood clot on the brain. He’s lucky to be alive. Police have charged seven suspects, five of whom appeared in court yesterday. The charges include violent disorder and racially aggravated GBH. They also released CCTV images of others they wished to interview.

The unfortunate victim, said to be an unaccompanied child refugee living with foster parents, was approached by the mob as he waited at a bus stop just before midnight. After being chased for 100 yards, he was subjected to a sustained, frenzied beating.

Detectives are investigating whether some of those involved tipped out of a nearby pub, The Goat. According to a police statement, they attacked him after establishing that he was an asylum seeker.

We will have to wait until the evidence is presented in court before we know the full picture. But the police are already treating it as a ‘hate crime’.

Inevitably, too, Left- wing politicians have seized on this awful, unprovoked attack as more ‘proof’ that Britain has become a vicious, racist country since we voted to leave the eU.

First out of the blocks was Diane Abbott, who managed to blame both the Tories and Brexit, without any concrete evidence. oh, do get back in your box, Diane.

The Remain camp would have us believe there has been an upsurge of racist violence against migrants by white working-class voters.

BUT

check out the CCTV pictures of two of the suspects police in Croydon published yesterday. They don’t exactly fit the profile of knuckle- scraping white supremacists.

one is black, the other appears to be mixed race. Yet the Left always maintain racism is something committed exclusively by whites against ethnic minorities.

Given that some of those in the frame seem to be from immigrant backgrounds themselves, would Abbott care to revise her conclusions about the motivation behind this attack?

There are undoubted tensions between different races who have made their homes in Britain — not just whites versus the rest.

The open borders policies of the past 15 years have fostered bitter resentment between settled immigrants and more recent arrivals — something the political elite simply refuse to accept.

They would rather concentrate on the alleged ‘ backlash’ by ignorant whites against foreigners to reinforce the myth that the Leave vote was driven purely by racism and bigotry.

Which is why the likes of Abbott were so eager to pounce on this incident and rush to judgment. How much more convenient it would have been for Diane if the suspects had all been white skinheads.

Look, I’m not trying to diminish this vile assault. It was certainly a hateful crime. As the Mail said yesterday, when those responsible are brought to justice let’s hope they receive the maximum sentences possible.

But take away the fact the victim was a young asylum seeker, could this not have been just another of those affrays which occur in town centres across the country every weekend at chucking out time?

even the detective leading the investigation thinks the attack wasn’t planned and said that alcohol was a major factor.

According to locals, this particular area of South London is culturally diverse and many asylum seekers have lived there for years without trouble. The chairman of the residents’ association said: ‘I have been here for decades and never experienced a racist incident.’

So while this is a deeply disturbing example of wanton thuggery, people should be careful before exploiting it for the sake of political expediency. London Mayor Sadiq Khan immediately joined Abbott in labelling it a ‘hate crime’.

But if Britain is brimming with racial hatred, why did Londoners elect Khan, a Muslim, as their mayor? How did a black woman like Diane Abbott manage to rise so high in politics? of course, the police are always eager to keep up their hate crime quota.

The ludicrous definition of a hate crime as any incident which anyone perceives as a hate crime has contributed to the hysteria being stoked by the Remainers.

Funny how those such as Abbott, who delight in linking ‘hate crime’ to Brexit and the Tories, are always reluctant to link terrorist attacks to Islam in any shape or form, even when the evidence is staring them in the face.

THen

there is also a multimillion-pound, taxpayerfunded hate crime industry, which needs to create the myth of a ‘hate crime epidemic’ to justify its existence.

In the wake of the referendum, they produced a report claiming a ‘57 per cent increase’ in hate crime. Yet when the Mail investigated this figure, it was demonstrably untrue and was quickly withdrawn.

That doesn’t stop it being trotted out regularly on radio, TV and in the Left-wing press. european politicians also allege that Brexit is behind a spate of racist attacks on Britain’s streets.

How, then, do they explain the widespread hostility towards migrants in cities across France and Germany — which, the last time anyone looked, were still in the eU and had no intention of leaving?

The plain fact is Britain is one of the most tolerant and generous countries in the world when it comes to immigrants and asylum seekers — which is why millions want to come and live here.

That’s not to be complacent. There are still pockets of intolerance and, I emphasise, the kind of savagery we saw on the streets of Croydon last week has no place in a civilised society.

But even if this attack does prove to have been motivated by racial hatred, it’s high time cynical, opportunist politicians like Diane Abbott put aside their own bigotry and ceased exploiting the despicable actions of a handful of ‘cowardly scum’ to smear 17.4 million decent people who voted Leave.