The sense of outrage clings to you. Never did I imagine I’d want the army deployed against British citizens to restore order. But here we are. Today, thousands of British citizens are the enemy within.

They spent the weekend engaged in what can only be called a far-right pogrom. How else to describe mobs setting fire to buildings because the people inside - those they wanted to burn alive - have a different religion or skin colour? How else to describe targeting mosques? How else to describe packs of white men - urged on by white women - hunting people of colour, beating them savagely?

This wasn’t protest. This was terrorism. The lives of police officers were at risk.

So let the sense of outrage cling, as now is the time for vengeance and punishment. Now is the time to break the far-right; to shame and ruin its enablers and wealthy, powerful dog-whistlers.

What’s needed isn’t a process of taming, but dismantlement and destruction. Didn’t the mob try to destroy our towns, the lives of fellow citizens - our democracy? So destruction is required in return: of their movement, and of their lives through draconian prison sentences.

Riot police form a line on the Lower Ormeau road after people taking part in an anti-Islamic protest make their way through the area following a protest outside Belfast City HallRiot police form a line on the Lower Ormeau road after people taking part in an anti-Islamic protest make their way through the area following a protest outside Belfast City Hall (Image: PA)

There’s no compromise with fascism - for that’s what this is: ordinary protestors don’t try to burn people alive, fascists do. And fascism must be smashed by any legal means necessary.

Chief among the enablers and dog-whistlers are politicians like Nigel Farage, and Elon Musk’s vile X, formerly Twitter.

Farage seeps poison into Britain. Never forget his hateful ‘Breaking Point’ Brexit poster, showing lines of brown faces, conflating race with Europe, and labelled a “blatant attempt to incite racial hatred” by Lord Prentis, former Unison general-secretary.

After the dreadful Southport attack on children, Farage posted video on X - ahead of rioting - questioning the police assessment that events weren’t terror-related.

“I wonder whether the truth is being held from us,” Farage said. He speculated whether the suspect was monitored by security services. The petrol was poured.

Brendan Cox, husband of murdered MP Jo Cox, said the remarks made Farage “nothing better than a Tommy Robinson in a suit”.

Robinson, commander-in-chief of the verbal arsonists, stokes riots via social media from his Cyprus sun-bed. His real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He founded the defunct English Defence League, and has a string of convictions.

Farage’s sidekick, Lee Anderson also hurls petrol around, ranting on Facebook that he suspected a hotel housed people who had entered Britain “illegally”. It turned out to be NHS nurses.

At the height of rioting, Anderson posted: “This problem has been caused by smug politicians who have refused to listen to the concerns of British people”. He knows exactly what he’s doing. The comment excuses obscene acts of violent crime and hatred.

Political fire-starting stretches beyond Reform into the Tory Party, where the likes of Suella Braverman dehumanise refugees, cynically inflaming manufactured culture wars.

The British media - both broadcasters and newspapers - have endlessly platformed and amplified the poison of people like Anderson and Farage, often without questioning, often without any balance.

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The media over the last ten years has allowed conspiracy theory to masquerade as legitimate opinion. So my industry poured petrol too. It shames journalism.

Far worse, though, than mainstream media is social media. Musk’s X is now mainlining  violence into the British body politic, fed by Russian state propaganda. 

I’ve lost count of the death threats I’ve received across social media. It’s awash with anonymous accounts and fake bots advocating violence, genocide, deportations - all across the west. Musk's platform amplifies lies, conspiracy and hate.

This is a perfect storm we’re in: extremist politicians aided and abetted by a news industry desperate for outrage because clicks mean cash, and social media giants hellbent on upending democracy. The result is the insurrection of hate we now see on our streets.

Swift, and if necessary brutal, action is required to restore order. Rioting carries ten years' imprisonment maximum. So jail rioters for ten years. Burning hotels with people inside is attempted murder. Prosecute anyone involved with attempted murder. If they’re members of far-right groups, proscribe those groups as terrorist organisations.

If rioting continues, use tear gas and if necessary rubber bullets to disperse far-right thugs. They want to put our police and fellow citizens in hospital, so let them risk hospital themselves.

Make a public spectacle of the arrest of ringleaders and cheerleaders who’ve crossed the line with incitement to violence. Use court orders to remove any wealth and property they accumulated from peddling hate.

Politicians who feed hate need publicly shamed - daily. When they speak, when they lie, when they peddle conspiracy and malevolence, they need to be humiliated for what they do. Decent political parties should unite on a single ticket in their constituencies - like Clacton - to defeat them.

Riot police form a line in Southport while a vehicle burns behind themRiot police form a line in Southport while a vehicle burns behind them (Image: Getty Images)

The mainstream media needs to clean up its act immediately. Senior editorial staff must examine their conscience and ask if money really outstrips democracy. GB News should have its licence to broadcast removed by Ofcom. Amid rioting it put out a poll asking “are the left elite to blame for the violence in Southport as they continue to smear and ignore angry communities?”. This isn’t reporting, it’s fire-starting.

Whatever the ‘left elite’ is, it certainly wasn’t rioting in balaclavas, attacking people of colour. 

However, everything is mere window-dressing unless social media is brought to heel. If this newspaper you’re reading printed articles calling for rioting across Britain, the publisher would be prosecuted. The same should go for Musk.

Social media should be treated the same as the press and broadcasters, subject to the same rules. Parliament must draft those laws. In the interim, if Musk won’t clean up the toilet he has created - now spilled over into our lives - then his site should be geo-blocked in Britain: forbidden to operate unless he meets civilised standards.

We can be harsh and uncompromising, or we can allow this rot to continue. If we do nothing, we walk closer to the abyss; and our fate here will be that of the America we see today, a land so divided it may never come together again.