Mayor race hate warning

REGION MORE DIVIDED AMID RISING TIDE OF INTOLERANCE, SAYS LEADER

- JANE HAYNES News Reporter

THERE is more division, anti Muslim rhetoric and 'hardened debate' since riots scarred inner cities and towns across the country a year ago, West Midlands mayor Richard Parker has warned.

Hateful rhetoric that would have once been condemned now 'slips into everyday politics' while there has been an alarming shift in what is considered acceptable to say, he told a 'one year on' event organised by the Birmingham-based British Muslim Network.

"The populist right haven't just got louder - they've been given more space to shout, and in too many places, fear is being left to fester and ferment while racism is going unchallenged," he told the event at Digbeth.

"As mayor, I won't accept that for this region," he said, pledging to support communities to speak up and demand action.

He said some of the Muslims he had spoken to in the region this year "feel less safe, less welcome and less heard than they did even a year ago."

Riots broke out in parts of the country last summer following the vicious killings of three little girls at a dance class in Southport, on Merseyside.

As rumours wrongly spread that the killer was a Muslim migrant, race hatred was fuelled by the blizzard of misinformation that flooded social media.