The most powerful message in politics has always been the lie that a small group of people are responsible for all the problems in our society. This lie has been used to justify wars, commit genocide, and persecute minorities, and sadly it has often been used to win elections.

The identity of the minority group is different in different times and places, but the story is always the same: “Give me the power to rule the country, and I will make all our lives better by persecuting the scapegoats.”

This message is attractive because it means we don't need to make any difficult choices in our own lives.

Not only does this attitude prevent us from facing up to the real solutions to these everyday problems, it also leaves the door open for extremists when something terrible happens, such as the cold-blooded killing of children at a dance class in Southport.

Attention-seekers have spent years building their own personal profile by blaming Muslims and migrants for all our country’s problems, and sure enough, they have used the Southport tragedy to stoke further division and violence by spreading misinformation about the suspected killer.

This racist propaganda has led angry mobs to attack mosques and refugee accommodation across the country. But of course the facts simply don’t fit this response. First of all the prime suspect is neither a Muslim nor an immigrant, and secondly, even if he was, he is just an individual. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in the UK and millions of Muslims, and none of them were responsible for this unprecedented attack on innocent children.

Liberalism is the antidote to this poison. Liberalism treats everyone as individuals, not just as identical members of a group. Liberals don’t look for simplistic solutions to complex problems: We know that everyone is a mixture of good and bad, and we all have to play our part in fixing the world’s problems. And when an individual commits an act of inexplicable violence, we know that the best response is not to look for a group to blame, but to come together and build a society where every individual is free to live their life without the fear of violence or hatred.

The mobs who claim to be “defending” or “protecting” have done nothing but cause distress and destruction. The society I want to be a part of is not represented by them, but by the armies of local residents who have emerged in every one of these communities to sweep up the mess and rebuild what has been broken.

Colin Martin

Liberal Democrat group leader and Cornwall councillor for Lostwithiel and Lanreath