Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash writes: 'This is Hartlepool. This is who we really are'

The violence was perpetrated by a tiny minority of mindless thugs, hell bent on confronting the police, committing criminal damage and causing residents nothing but fear.

They chose to march past our town’s two mosques and targeted an area of town with a high Muslim population.

They attacked local businesses, like the butchers on Murray Street, they smashed windows and they set cars alight.

They had no justification whatsoever for their behaviour and I hope every one of them feels the full force of the law. Our Police did a magnificent job.

Social media companies must accept their share of responsibility for these events.

Their platforms have become a breeding ground for lies and misinformation.

The claim that the alleged perpetrator of the Southport attack was an illegal immigrant who arrived on a small boat - totally false, he was born in the UK.

The claim that there’s a secret plan to move thousands of asylum seekers to Hartlepool - totally false.

These riots are being orchestrated online by far right agitators who are exploiting people’s concerns with false information and lies.

Of course we need a grown up discussion about our broken asylum and immigration systems.

Labour has inherited a catastrophic mess that will take time to fix.

On asylum, when Labour were last in office there were no small boats, no hotel use and only around 7000 waiting for an asylum decision.

Now small boats are at record levels, we are spending £8million a day on hotels and the backlog is well in the many tens of thousands.

We have to fix our asylum and immigration system and the Labour Government has already started that process, cancelling the Rwanda scheme that cost £700 million and only sent 4 volunteers to the country, and using the money instead to secure our borders and fast track returns.

Returning to the riots. I arrived at the scene at 7:30am the morning after and I spoke to the business and people impacted by the violence.

Already on the scene were council workers clearing the mess, volunteers donating and helping to clear up, police reassuring those who were scared. This is Hartlepool. This is who we really are.