THE violence of the past week poses a dilemma for all who believe in democracy. The threat of long prison sentences may eventually force thugs off the streets, but retribution has no power to change people’s opinions. The rapid spreading of false narratives online is alarming enough, but more alarming still is the fertile ground in which these falsehoods have landed. It is tempting, for the sake of argument, to set aside those who have no interest in argument — the young people, bouncing with delight at the prospect of lawless mischief on a hot summer evening; the older, heavy-set men who have swaggered in front of lines of riot police, mistaking immobility for impotence. It is easier to engage with the onlookers, those who have eschewed violence and yet support it tacitly with their presence. But they make the same casual link as the thugs, between their grievances and newcomers — just as their forebears blamed their lack of fortune on the Jews, or the Irish, or the Huguenots, or the Catholics, or simply the people from the neighbouring village. The sociologist Professor Hartmut Rosa remarked in this paper (Interview, 21 June): “Right-wing populists attribute their sense of alienation to ‘aliens’. . . People feel precisely not heard or seen by politicians.”

The vacuum in which populists operate has been allowed to develop by a generation of professional politicians who lost touch with their constituents, a process described (and criticised) by the Bishop of Chelmsford in her address to the National Justice and Peace Network Conference last month (extract here). Had politicians addressed fears about immigration by making a positive case for it rather than pandering to hostility driven by ignorance and paranoia, the whole discourse about immigration might have been changed. But how often, during the recent election campaign, did we hear a political leader speak with pride about the nurture of asylum-seekers which this country has been able to afford? How often was the attested benefit of immigration to the UK economy pointed out? How much willingness has there been to address migration as a global issue requiring global cooperation? How much attention has been given to the issue of integration, where regional influxes have changed the prevailing culture?

But this is not just a failure of politicians. The Church has boasted frequently that it has a presence in every community, and can thus speak authoritatively for all. It is clear this week, though, that the simplest and most basic message of Christianity — love God, and love your neighbour as yourself — has not been communicated successfully. When the violence has died down, there will be more to clear up than just broken glass. If the UK has any pretentions to being a Christian country — and adherents of other religions rely on the Church to afford them the protection that Christ’s message offers — the Church must face up to its inability to bring good news to those who feel dispossessed.