Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham has condemned Manchester’s tram race attack during a speech in the Commons - warning Britain is turning into a place ‘we’ve never been’.
But the Leigh MP, who is also running to be the Mayor of Greater Manchester, said the ‘small minority’ of people using the Brexit decision as an excuse for hatred and violence would be defeated.
Mr Burnham reeled off a string of race hate incidents across the country since the referendum result last Friday morning, noting a 57pc rise in reported online hate crimes on top of a general upwards trend.
He said: “Perhaps most disturbing are the reports of attacks on individuals and incidents of racial hatred against specific communities.
“In Huntingdon cards have been distributed outside homes and primary schools saying ‘No more Polish vermin’. In Hammersmith a Polish community centre was daubed with racist graffiti.
“On Monday the Guardian reported that a Muslim schoolgirl was cornered by a group of people who told her: “Get out, we voted leave”.
“Yesterday footage emerged of a US army veteran and university lecturer being told to ‘go back to Africa’ by three youths travelling on a tram in Manchester.
“There are anecdotal reports of women speaking in a foreign language on a mobile phone being screamed at and told to go home.”
He added: “What is happening to the Britain we have known? This isn’t taking our country back, Mr Speaker, this is turning Britain into a place we have never been.”
Mr Burnham, who is running to be Labour’s mayoral candidate in Greater Manchester, demanded a timetable for the government’s new hate crime strategy, announced by the Prime Minister in the wake of the incidents.
He pushed for reassurances to be directed at EU and other foreign nationals living in this country regarding their immigration status, while calling for the security services to put more resources into fighting far-right extremism.
In response, immigration minister Karen Bradley said she agreed that there is no place for hate crime in British society and assured migrants that there would be no change to their immigration status.
The new hate crime would be published ‘shortly’, but the government wants to get it right, she said.
Victim of 'racist abuse on tram' says he's overwhelmed by support from Manchester and across the world
