Southport pier is rotten. Opened in 1860 during the town’s Victorian tourism goldrush, it is Britain’s second-longest, stretching into the Irish Sea off the north-west coast of England. But in 2022 its decking was found to be unsafe and was “temporarily” closed.
The rest of the town was waking up on the weekday morning I visit. Workmen were arriving to unlock the town’s fairground Pleasureland (mini-golf, bowling, Splash World). Joggers in fluorescent cagoules circle the nearby parks, all named for kings and queens.
The pedimented town hall proudly wears an umbrella-sized poppy for Remembrance Sunday. But the pier is still closed. In the past few months, what was a quiet seaside town has become a byword for an English horror story.
On 29 July three little girls – Bebe, Elsie and Alice – were stabbed to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class they attended in Southport. Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 years old at the time of the attack, has been charged with their murder. That sickening attack was followed by the worst civil unrest in England for 13 years.
It was fuelled by lies about the identity of the killer circulating on social media. He was a Muslim, it was claimed, his name was Ali al-Shakati, he’d arrived illegally on a small boat. The raging discourse triggered riots across English towns and cities, with hotels containing asylum seekers and Islamic community centres coming under particular attack.
Keir Starmer labelled the violence “far-right thugger.