Where are our leaders? They need to start saving lives — and stop playing political football
SINCE Christmas, four young men under the age of 22 have been killed in Haringey, North London.
I saw the pain on the faces of those laying flowers once again this week.
My constituents are angry, they have every right to be and I am angry on their behalf.
As of last night, a staggering 53 murders have been carried out in our capital this year and yet our Prime Minister and political leaders seem to be burying their heads in the sand.
In the corridors of power this tragic toll has been met with nothing but stony silence.
On Monday night 17-year-old Tanesha Melbourne was gunned down in my constituency for no reason.
It seems she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The situation here is the worst I’ve ever seen in my 18 years as an MP.
But I’ve not had one phone call from Theresa May, or Home Secretary Amber Rudd, and I’ve not even had a phone call from London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Am I really meant to believe that if four young men were killed in a leafy shire of suburbia the Prime Minister would be nowhere to be seen?
Why do the lives of my constituents matter less than the lives of people elsewhere in the country?
Despite being at the heart of the crisis, no one has come to visit my constituency. Where is the leadership? Where is the action?
Schools are traumatised by these deaths, parents and friends are grieving. But there is absolutely no sign at the moment of a reduction in the violence.
The link with drugs gangs and organised crime is clear.
Rival gangs are caught up in postcode wars, and what lies beneath the surface is a serious drug market being driven by gangsters.
It’s time to face facts — we’ve lost control of the drugs market. We are the cocaine capital of Europe, and Britain’s illegal drugs trade is worth up to £11billion a year. The resulting turf wars are driving violence on our streets to untenable levels.
We have a thoroughly depressing situation where children as young as 12 are being recruited as drugs mules.
MY BLUEPRINT FOR CHANGE
- A radical shift in understanding of the root causes of gangs
- All-party deal on a serious strategy to tackle the problem
- A serious crackdown on violent offenders
- A health, housing and jobs plan offering a way out of gang life
I sat in Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court recently while a 15-year-old boy gave evidence after being charged with running drugs to Aberdeen. I came to understand from the magistrates that this is unfortunately very common.
Even though the war might be fought out on the streets of London, the market may well be hundreds of miles away.
As we see in parts of downtown America, young men — particularly in communities like mine — become foot soldiers for gangsters and McMafia-style bosses much further up the tree.
Of course, increasing demand for drugs is fuelling these crimes.
The EU Monitoring Centre For Drugs found that the UK is the heaviest user of cocaine in Europe — more than twice as many Brits use cocaine compared to the Europe average.
Worst of all, in terms of future trends, the proportion of schoolchildren who say they have taken drugs is escalating, rising from 15 per cent to 24 per cent in the two years to 2016.
Picking up drugs is as easy as ordering a pizza on Deliveroo.
You can get them on Snapchat or WhatsApp.
You can order them on the dark web and have them delivered to your home.
Despite all this, I’m hearing nothing about what we are going to do to tackle the rising drugs market.
To successfully tackle gang crime in London there needs to be a shift in understanding of the root causes of the problem. We need a coherent strategy.
There is a group of young people falling through the cracks.
They tend to come from poorer families, many of them get excluded from school very young.
Perhaps we should look to Glasgow.
The city had a similar problem in 2005, when a United Nations report concluded that Scotland was the most violent country in the developed world.
But a political consensus between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party changed all that.
It was carrot and stick — serious enforcement and a crackdown on violent offenders. But they also developed a public health strategy.
Young people also need to be offered a way out of gang life, especially in areas where unemployment among young men is running at more than 30 per cent.
this meant offering help with housing, mental health, employment and training. The challenges are the same in my community and we need the same multi-agency and properly resourced strategy. Last year there was not one stabbing death in Glasgow.
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But in order to deal with this issue in London we need cross-party action.
I’m sick of the issue being a political football — we need political consensus and we need to start talking.
Someone needs to pick up the phone and get all the major players round the table. Lives are on the line.
- David Lammy is the MP for Tottenham, in the London Borough of Haringey.