Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

We need to talk about the killing of David Amess

(Photo: Getty)

In the world I inhabit, the killing of Sir David Amess has been formally declared a terrorist incident, a suspect has been taken into custody, and the police have identified ‘a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism’.

In a second world, constructed of headlines and commentary and tweets, a conversation is taking place that is almost entirely disconnected from this base reality. In this world, the Home Secretary is primarily concerned about the ‘corrosive space’ provided by social media, the Commons asks questions about the ‘toxic’ conduct of politics, and attention is given to the level of aggression and abuse experienced by MPs.

These are important issues. It is not right that our elected representatives are faced with a deluge of threats and repulsive language for doing their jobs. But these issues are distinct from the matter at hand.

According to the current discourse there are only two acceptable ways to recognise the suspected motivations of the attack. The first is the condemnation of the murder by Southend mosques as being ‘committed in the name of blind hatred.’ The second – as skewered by the late, great Norm Macdonald – is the concern that the murder will drive a rise in hate crime against Muslims.

To avoid the hard conversations entirely is to abandon a community when it needs our help most

It is instructive to compare the response to David Amess’s death to the aftermath of the murder of Jo Cox. By the end of the 16 June, the nation was gripped in an in-depth discussion about the potential far-right motive of Thomas Mair, how this related to anti-immigration sentiments expressed by politicians, and the tenor and conduct of the Brexit debate.

The Guardian said that Cox may have died for her ideals of multiculturalism and diversity, called out far-right political parties for rhetoric that mirrored ‘the ideology with which Isis and al-Qaida secure their recruits’, and noted that Brexit risked ‘becoming a plebiscite on immigration and immigrants.’

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