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Chuka Umunna calls for national mission to end youth violence

Chuka Umunna
Chuka Umunna says a major shift in understanding is needed by politicians. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Chuka Umunna will argue that the “populism of the left and right” cannot solve the problem of serious youth violence and that “a paradigm shift” in understanding is required to tackle an issue that politicians have so far failed to resolve.

The backbench Labour MP will deliver a speech in Brixton, south London, on Tuesday to argue that ending youth violence should be “a national mission”, after a year that has seen an upsurge in violence, including 21 stabbings of teenagers in the capital.

Highlighting the figures, Umunna will say: “This violence is a scar on our nation, and yet British politics today is incapable of adequately responding to it.” He will argue that the existing political extremes provide no viable solution.

“The populism of left and right both here and in Europe has reduced politics to simple, black and white, tweetable answers to every problem.

“One side thinks the answer is to throw money at the problem and pull the levers of state. The other argues for ever tougher sanctions,” Umunna will say, according to advance extracts of his speech.

“Nothing illustrates the futility of these responses for me right now than the issue of serious youth violence, which is a complex and a very modern phenomenon,” he will add.

Umunna’s speech comes a few days after he was embroiled in a row with Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, who had accused him of using Labour’s row over antisemitism as a method to “provide rocket fuel for a split in the party”.

The MP, often seen as a leader of a pro-remain, anti-Corbyn bloc in parliament, had argued that Labour “continues to allow institutional antisemitism to flourish” and the party’s shadow cabinet should have held an emergency meeting to resolve the issue.

McCluskey hit back last Thursday: “Let those few Labour MPs looking to break away from the party do so on an honest basis, embracing capitalism, the free market and the alliance with Trump’s America, and not pretend that Labour is something it is not, an institutionally racist party,” he said.

The speech to be delivered by Umunna draws on his time serving on the government’s serious violence taskforce, although the press release announcing the event indicated he was speaking “in a personal capacity” and not as a taskforce member.

The MP will say that it is necessary to go further than treating youth violence as a public health problem along the lines of Scotland, the solution proposed by the taskforce in its interim report. “You cannot deliver that model without whole system, cultural and organisational change with sustained political backing.”

He concludes that he is proposing a centre-left solution, saying that Tony Blair’s phrase “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” was no longer the right place to start the conversation.

“Young men and boys involved in knife crime are not innocent victims. They must be responsible for their actions. But there are larger forces at work that can make it harder to do the right thing,” the MP will say.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Knife crime has devastating consequences on our communities, and our Serious Violence Strategy signals a step change in balancing a law enforcement response with a multi-agency approach.”

She added: “Last month the home secretary announced doubling the Early Intervention Fund to £22m to help youth groups and communities provide young people with positive choices and steer them away from crime.”