Cllr Andy Hull
Cllr Andy Hull

Cllr Andy Hull, Executive Member for Finance, Performance and Community Safety, explains what action Islington Labour is taking to stamp out hate crime in the borough.

National Hate Crime Awareness Week (13th-20th October 2018) is an opportunity for our community to unite, standing together with those affected by hate crime. That is why Islington Labour councillors are signing up to the Islington Anti Hate Crime Pledge – you too can take a stand against hate and join the hundreds of local organisations and individuals who have signed up here.

A hate crime happens when someone is targeted because of an aspect of who they are, such as their ethnicity, gender, disability, faith, age or sexual orientation. Some of us may have witnessed hate crime and been unsure of what to do in response. There’s still work to do to ensure people know how they can help, so this week the council is running an awareness-raising campaign with its partners at Arsenal FC, City and Islington College, the Metropolitan Police Service, British Transport Police, Finsbury Park Mosque and the Elfrida Society. Thankfully, reporting an incident is simple: you can do it by telephone, online or using the Self Evident app – and you can make such a report anonymously, if you wish.

Despite the wonderful diversity of our city and our borough, there are still those who would seek to divide us. The perpetrator of the far-right terrorist attack in Finsbury Park last year sought to divide our community but had the opposite effect. As a local resident, there on the night, I was proud of the support people gave to each other after the attack, and of the support the council offered the victims and their families.

Islington’s Labour administration was elected earlier this year on a bold manifesto to make our borough a fairer and safer place for all. This has to include tackling hate crime in all its forms. It is in that spirit that I urge everyone to join me in supporting National Hate Crime Awareness Week and to send the message out loud and clear that Islington will always stand united in the face of hate.

While we should be proud of the indomitable community spirit here in our borough, we know that there is more to do to tackle hate crime. That’s why the council is continuing to engage with local communities to listen to their experiences of hate crime and to hear their ideas for how we can stamp it out together.

I sit down regularly with police colleagues and voluntary sector partners to undertake hate crime dip-sampling – talking through in detail real, randomly selected incidents of hate crime in Islington and how they were dealt with. One lesson emerging from that process is that our community safety partnership could be better at spotting patterns in such offending, rather than seeing such events in isolation. It is a lesson I intend to ensure we both learn and apply.

The police and the crown prosecution service have secured some positive convictions for hate crime in the borough of late. In 2017/18, for instance, hate criminals were convicted locally for crimes including islamophobic threats, racial abuse and antisemitic harassment. Whether an attacker ends up getting convicted or not, it is vitally important that victims of hate crime receive appropriate support. We have excellent community partners, both locally and nationally, offering assistance to those who have experienced hate crime, including, for example, Camden and Islington LGBT Forum, the Community Security Trust and Victim Support. Council colleagues and police partners ought to refer victims of hate crime on to such agencies for support before their cases are closed.

Hate crime across England rose after the vote to leave the European Union. In particular, hate crime targeted at people on the basis of their religion – especially that which is directed at Muslims – has surged nationwide in the past year.  We cannot rule out the possibility that hate crime levels will spike once again when (or if) Brexit actually happens next year. With the far-right organising internationally – rallied by the likes of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Gerard Batten and Steve Bannon and facilitated by their supposedly respectable allies like Boris Johnson – we cannot be too vigilant in protecting our neighbours from crime motivated by hate.

The police need to prioritise tackling hate crime in our community, but they cannot do this alone, particularly after Islington has lost 300 police officers since 2010 as a result of short-sighted Tory government cuts. Tackling hate crime requires real commitment from all of us. Islington is no place for hate, and this council will always work hard to promote togetherness in our cosmopolitan community. Islington Labour is continuing to listen to residents and is taking a stand against all forms of hatred. As Jo Cox MP reminded us, before she herself was murdered by a far-right extremist, we have more in common than that which divides us.

 

The council supports the independent, community-led Islington Hate Crime Forum. If you would like support or advice from the forum, please email hatecrimeforum@islington.gov.uk

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