Michelle Jones (she/her/hers)

ALT Disability Rights UK is sickened by the ongoing racist violence erupting across our country. We stand in solidarity with migrant and minoritised communities who are being attacked or who are afraid to go about their daily lives because of the attacks. Many of us have lived experience of racism and we are aware that Disabled people of colour may be or feel at greater risk of harm in these circumstances. It is not enough to condemn ongoing violence if we refuse to look at how we have normalised Islamophobic and racist state policies, discourse and media coverage over the past few decades. This is the impact of successive governments’ rhetoric stoking division and too little being done by social media platforms to tackle hate and inflammatory speech. We support the Prime Minister’s assertion that these are not protests but ‘organised, violent thuggery’. The victims of the horrific Southport attack are sidelined and forgotten by the rioters, who are cruelly and cynically exploiting what