The Southport cover-up must never be allowed to happen again, says Jacob Rees-Mogg

Never until the 29th July 2024.

Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls. At first, his name was not revealed.

This left an information vacuum which was filled by half, mis, and untruths about the suspect’s identity paving the way for riots and disorder.

Eventually, Rudakabana’s identity was revealed but by that point the damage was done as the authorities had left the impression he was a Welsh choirboy.

Even when his name was out in the open, it was clear the authorities were not being frank with the public.

It was then another three months until the police revealed the fact that Rudakabana was in possession of an Al Qaeda terror manual and the poison ricin.

The Prime Minister knew about the evidence within a few days of the attack. But he decided that you, the public, could not be trusted with the truth.

It is very odd that the non-terrorist charges were on the 31st July while the terrorism charges were delayed and the British people effectively misled until the 29th October.

In the interim the public sensed something was up. They sensed this wasn’t simply a choir boy from Cardiff. They sensed this attack had its roots somewhere in the murky world of our porous borders.

And yet this Labour government, whose instinct is to cover-up, to obfuscate, to conceal, leaned on the tropes of ‘far-right’ and law and order while the entire nation knew there was more to this story than the authorities were letting on.

But the great deflection has begun.

The government will now try to blame the institutions as a means of avoiding the fundamental question: why did it not tell the truth to the public sooner?

Freedom of speech is the bedrock of democracy. Democracy only works with an informed public. When the truth is concealed, the trust that binds our institutions together disintegrates. And without trust, we are left with anarchy. A cover-up like Southport, as I see it, must never be allowed to happen again.