Who gets to be a victim? The tragedy in Middlesbrough exposes the politics of selective outrage

People up and down the country will have asked themselves, like I did: what went wrong? How did this end so badly that seven souls were taken?

We may never know why this tragedy happened. Why this particular police pursuit ended in seven empty beds, seven funerals and seven devastated families. Their pain is undoubtedly immeasurable.

What I do know is that if the occupants of the car responsible for the crash had looked different, we’d be reckoning with a very different political reality right now.

A quick glance at their criminal records paints a pretty ugly picture. Four out of the five already had numerous convictions under their belt ranging from assault, drug possession, vehicle theft, carrying knives, shoplifting, assaulting police officers, racial harassment...the list goes on.

Resurfaced social media videos that emerged in the wake of the crash show some of those involved joyriding at dangerous speeds down streets, on footpaths and through parks with no regard for public safety at all.

Growing up in the North East, I knew plenty of boys who lived life in this way. I’d be forced to sit next to them in school to make them less disruptive and better behaved - to my own detriment. They could be obnoxious, careless and cruel. The ones I knew lacked social awareness or considered about how their actions affected others.

They lacked firm parenting, had no interest in education and even less for authority. There was no aspiration or ambition. They were happy to circle the drain, not caring about who they dragged along with them as they drifted into a life of chaos and criminality.

I won’t pretend the lives of the five passengers of the car happened in a vacuum. Successive governments have failed Middlesbrough, a former industrial heartland once nicknamed ‘Ironopolis’ for its booming iron and steel production.

With one of the lowest life expectancies in the country, the town once known as ‘City of Iron’ has been brought to its knees by steady industrial decline and rising unemployment. Successive governments have failed to level up while issues like poverty, drugs, high crime rates and lack of opportunity run rampant.

But that is no excuse.

I strongly believe that if the five people in the car who died alongside the police officers were of a different ethnicity, several cities would be on fire right now. Thugs would have taken to the streets, Nigel Farage would’ve once again been calling for ‘pure cold rage’ and Elon Musk would be sharing tweet after tweet about how the UK has fallen.

But they haven’t. A quick check of their social media accounts shows radio silence.

Why? Because they can’t capitalise on this tragedy.

Because here’s the thing that Reform won’t ever admit. The people who disrupt, ruin or terrorise most regular people’s lives don’t come to the UK by boat.

Instead, they’re homegrown.

Creators of chaos, public disruption and anti-social behaviour without care for the consequences.

How many communities are plagued with this kind of lawlessness? How many people feel trapped in their own towns, surrounded by criminality and anti-social behaviour?

And why hasn’t it been called out by Farage and Reform UK, who so often declare how much they care about law and order? Two police officers killed in the line of duty - and not a word.

Their silence is deafening but speaks volumes. It doesn't fit their narrative.

After the tragic killing of Henry Nowak, Farage held an emergency address to the nation and claimed Britain was being run under a “two-tier justice system”. After the horrific attack in Southport, Farage was accused by a former terror chief of helping incite riots. But now he’s shtum.

Right-wing politicians and pundits who love to portray the UK as a lawless hellhole also seem suspiciously silent.

Could it be because they know there is nothing politically expedient about the story?

Their selective outrage worries me, doubly so as we have seen time and time again that online rhetoric can materialise into real violence.

When perpetrators of terrible crimes come from immigrant backgrounds, conversations about integration, cultural differences and the failures of multiculturalism reignite. When they’re not…it’s crickets.

It leaves us unable to have a real conversation about how to address the growing social malaise that has been born from decades of decline. We continue on without addressing real issues.

It worries me that a new pattern has emerged where a political class turns a blind eye in order to mollycoddle certain communities and redirect their frustrations towards those even more disenfranchised than themselves. All the while, Westminster debates exactly which welfare payments to cut and youth unemployment figures continue to spiral out of control.

When racial lines are drawn around who counts as a threat, and whose death merits outrage, their message is clear: some victims are more useful to them than others.

The families of PC Matthew Blades, PC Thomas Clough, and everyone else killed in this tragedy, deserve more than to have their grief filtered through political agendas. They deserve answers, accountability and the space to grieve.

Middlesbrough too deserves better. The town deserves an honest conversation about crime, deprivation and opportunity - one that doesn’t begin and end with scapegoating of migrants, but instead addresses the issues closer to home.

A fundraiser for the families of PC Blades and PC Clough can be found here

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Flaminia Luck is an LBC Journalist.

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

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