LAST week, a horrendous murder took place in Southport as three children were brutally hacked to death in a violent knife attack. What followed showed both the best and worst of society.

The best was the outpouring of support for the grieving families of the children. The worst was the far-right forces who attacked the mosque in Southport, a hotel housing refugees in Rotherham, and Muslim-run businesses across the country.

These far-right attacks on the Muslim community echo the tactics of the Nazis against Jewish people, shops and businesses in Germany in the 1930s. In both scenarios, the far right use violence against minorities and blame them for poverty, housing shortages and pressures on health and education services.

The emboldening of the racist right has come from the growing use of anti-migrant language by supposedly mainstream politicians, claiming that desperate people crossing the Channel in flimsy boats are an “invading force.” 

The same voices seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge that wars cause refugee flows, and that the migrants who have made their homes in Britain work tirelessly to try and make underfunded services work at all.

At the same time, we are witnessing an economic strategy inherited from the Tories which increases the huge wealth gap in our society, perpetuates austerity and ignores the desperate poverty of so many children.

The response of the left must be to stand with the victims of far-right terror, challenge the far-right racism and call for the government to address the common issues facing all communities: the housing crisis, crumbling education and the collapse of our NHS.

Rather than perpetuating the poverty of so many children by denying benefits to the third child onwards in families, or “saving” money by taking the winter fuel payments away from many older people, the government must address the issues of inequality and greed.

Migrants and refugees are not responsible for unregulated rents, rampant privatisation of our health service or the obscene levels of wealth of the richest in our society.

If the huge social needs of the poorest in our society are not dealt with, the obscene attacks on the Muslim community and refugees will lead to a further wholesale shift to the extreme right.

Pandering to them by anti-migrant rhetoric is not the answer. Instead, we need immediate and public solidarity with the victims. We need to recognise that the failure to deal with the economic needs of people is fertile ground on which the seeds of fascism can grow. We need to offer a message of hope around which all communities can unite.

Jeremy Corbyn is independent MP for Islington North.