Far right exploit Westminster terror attack

Like so many people, I’ve walked along Westminster Bridge both as a tourist and on my way to meetings in and around the UK Parliament. It’s such an iconic and familiar setting that many of us will have instinctively recalled previous visits when news came through on Wednesday of the horrific terrorist attack in London.

For many people the barrage of images, comment and analysis about events like this must be bewildering and I know that many people find it particularly difficult to help children understand what’s happening.

I can barely imagine the impact on those growing up today of seeing the brutal reality of Wednesday’s attack and others like it.

Their experiences, not only of what they see in the news and in the social media torrent but also their experiences of our response as a society, will shape their understanding of the world around them.

We all have a responsibility, in politics, in the media, in our education system and in wider society, to overcome those fears and to ensure that young people grow up with those same values of respect and empathy that MSPs of all parties spoke about this week at first minister’s questions.

We need our young people to have a belief in the capacity of humanity to stand together and at times that can be a difficult belief to sustain.

It’s vital too that we respond robustly to any increase in hate crime and prejudice in Scotland and that we confront any presence of such far-right threats in our society. It’s a sad truth that the far right are already trying to make political gain out of this attack by attempting to demonise and blame those who are not responsible.

There are people in our society, in our media and in politics in this country and others who are continuing to express racist, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments to advance their hateful agenda. The truth is that those behind this type of terrorist atrocity wish to inflict a lasting injury upon us all by destroying the empathy and solidarity which a decent society depends upon.

They want to use fear, suspicion and prejudice to drive a dividing line between us and our Muslim neighbours. We must deny them what they seek and in particular we must challenge those who would seek to blame, stigmatise and alienate people on the basis of their religion.