LONDON – THE UK I woke up Sunday morning to the city’s streets covered in rubble and smoldering trash, as a weekend of far-right anti-immigration demonstrations — fueled by conspiracy theories spread on social media — erupted into violence in seven cities across the country.
Police arrested at least 100 people, and riot police wearing helmets and shields came out in force as Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to take action against “extremists”.
On Saturday, groups in Leeds waving St George’s Cross flags, England’s national flag regularly flown by far-right groups, chanted “Muslims off our streets”, combining this with a slur suggesting they were criminal child abusers. In the city of Hull, protesters threw bottles and broke a window of a hotel housing asylum seekers as demonstrators clashed with police.
What began as targeted anti-immigrant demonstrations quickly turned into aimless mayhem. A library in Liverpool, reopened in 2023 as an “employment education” service for people of all abilities, has been set on fire.
A city police officer was hit in the head with a chair and another kicked and knocked over his motorcycle. Police responsible for the region confirmed that two officers were taken to hospital with injuries.
Starmer denounced the violence on Saturday, saying the right to free speech and violent disorder were “two very different things”, adding that “there is no excuse for violence of any kind”.
Some of the protests did not turn violent. In the southwestern city of Bristol, groups chanted “we want our country back”, while others chanted “England until I die”. There were also clashes with counter-protesters chanting “racist scum, off our streets”.
The latest demonstrations follow a week of riots in the country after three girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in the town of Southport. At the center of the demonstrations was a conspiracy theory, spread on social media, based on the lie that the perpetrator was Muslim, an asylum seeker or both.
Less than three hours after the attack on the girls, AI-generated images were shared on X by an account called Invasion of Europe, depicting a man in traditional Muslim dress brandishing a knife outside the UK Houses of Parliament. The post has since been viewed more than 900,000 times.
A TikTok account with no previous content that called for protests near the site of the attack also racked up nearly 60,000 views within hours, a spokesperson for Tech Against Terrorism told The Guardian.
And so the nation was only briefly united in mourning for the girls before their hometown of Southport was ravaged by violence, when a group of mostly white men threw bottles and bricks at police officers and a mosque.
Reporting restrictions that prevented the identification of the suspect, who is under 18, were eventually lifted in order to prevent the spread of misinformation following the circulation of a false name online.
It turns out that suspect Axel Rudakubana, 17, was born in the Welsh capital, Cardiff, and lived for years in a village near Southport, police said. The motive for the stabbings remains unknown.
But the violence continued anyway by a far right galvanized by a surge in support in the recent UK general election and its long-held perception that mass immigration is depleting the nation’s resources and threatening its children.
And, in another sign of the far right’s effective online presence, the call to mobilize was led by a number of influential figures who command a considerable following but who are largely absent on the ground.
The founder of the far-right English Defense League, Tommy Robinson – who last week fled Britain, where he was due to be in court over alleged contempt proceedings – was one of the first to call for nationwide protests, urging his 800,000 X followers “attacking the streets.” Other online personalities such as internet influencer Andrew Tatethat remains in Romania as he prepares to stand trial on sex trafficking charges, he said in a video on X that the attacker was an “illegal immigrant.”
More than 30 protests have been planned for the weekend, and thousands of extra police are on standby, with further demonstrations expected on Sunday.
Around 100 protesters supporting refugees gathered early on Sunday afternoon outside a hotel in Rotherham believed to be housing asylum seekers, shouting “refugees are welcome here”, while groups opposing asylum seekers asylum threw objects at the hotel, broke windows and set fire to a building. trash can. According to the BBC, at least one police officer was injured.
The British police minister told BBC radio on Sunday that there would be “consequences” for those who “go out and attack our police officers, loot shops, destroy property and intimidate communities”. A chorus of police officers from across the country also condemned the violence.
Starmer on Sunday called the hotel attack “organized, violent violence.” He went on to condemn the “gangs of looters” who set fire to the hotel, leaving residents and staff in fear.
While the center-left Work Part recently won a landslide victory In the July elections in the United Kingdom, this shift to the left was accompanied by growing support for the far-right Reform UK party, which won 4 million votes.
And the success of the Labor Party was due, at least in part, to the growing popularity of the far right, which split the right-wing vote, causing many conservative lawmakers to lose their seats in Parliament.
The latest demonstrations frustrate any idea that Starmer’s center-left government has prevented a rising far-right movement that continues to grow on the continent. Behind its majority, there continues to be a furious and active far-right current that continues to make itself heard.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
