The Green Party MP who formed a human shield to prevent violent scenes from escalating in Leeds is being dubbed the “Hero of Harehills” by people on social media.
Mothin Ali, a councillor for Gipton and Harehills ward, spent the best part of Thursday evening trying to stop people from throwing objects onto already raging fires, with social media footage showing him dramatically kicking away a wheelie bin being dragged towards a fire by two young people.
Appealing for calm the morning after the violence, he told The Independent: “The police weren’t around. I don’t want to criticise them but they left the scene and tried to come back and establish control – but they were being pelted with bricks and bottles and were chased off.
“Our neighbourhood police team are fantastic and actually care about our community, but they didn’t have the resources or the support they needed.
“They had no shields and no helmets. Me and a couple of others tried to form a human shield. We stood in front of the bricks and bottles and tried to give the police a way of retreating.”
In an interview with the Guardian conducted shortly after the incident, Ali spoke of the need to reach out to communities and bring isolated people into the system to avoid future outbursts of violence.
In stereotypical local councillor style, he said one of the biggest complaints he hears amongst residents was bin collections being missed because of blockages in the narrow streets in Harehills.
He pulled up a meme made from a picture taken by a local photographer, which described him as the “hero of Harehills”.
He said: “I think someone should have captioned it: ‘Nothing stops me on bin day.’”
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