The immediate cause of the events was a horrible knife attack in the picturesque seaside town of Southport (Merseyside, England). Three young girls were killed and many other wounded by a knife-wielding 17-year-old, who entered a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance session.
A deed for which there is no excuse.
Yet, it got almost completely forgotten in the aftermath.
In the wake of the attack, rioting broke out in Southport. Police sources claimed that the men involved were part of the far-right English Defence League.
Soon, violence spread to other communities (Southport, Hartlepool, and London, among others) and saw clashes between rioters and police, but also an attack against a Holiday Inn thought to be operating as a shelter for immigrants.
Anti-protesters (organising a “Stand Up to Racism” counter protest) also appeared, further complicating the life of the police forces, as they had to separate the two groups. In Birmingham, balaclava-clad rioters started their own protest as rumour started to spread about a far-right rally in the city.
After the weekend of violent disorder, Prime Minister Starmer blasted “far-right thuggery”, while others declared that “there will be a reckoning for those involved in the violence” or threatened the rioters with “the full weight of the law”.
In the time of writing of this article, the violence continues. Nearly 400 had been arrested across the country. From time to time, (often unfounded) gossips start to spread about possible far-right meetings or protests, forcing the residents of the area to hide in fear.
And the blame game will go on for months even after the last of the fires had been put out, along with the questions about the root causes.
The visible and obvious starting point was a false claim spreading on social media.
Right now, it is thought to be Tommy Robinson (otherwise known as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a well-known figure in the British far-right scene) who started off the chain of events by posting a series of fabricated claims about the perpetrator of the Southport stabbings.
Others, like former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove claim that the false information may have been spread by Russia, as another attempt to cause havoc in Europe, to divert attention from Ukraine.
Nigel Farage quickly followed suit, suggesting that the authorities kept the truth from the population and questioning why the incident was not being treated as terror related.
Riots started almost immediately, in spite of the efforts to cool the mood. Or as Metro mayor of Liverpool Steve Rotheram said, rioters were “whipped up into a frenzy by social media”.
This on the other hand, caused a direct clash between PM Starmer and Elon Musk. Starmer criticised the business mogul for his remarks about the “inevitability of civil war”, stating “there’s no justification for comments like that and what we’ve seen in this country is organised illegal thuggery which has no place on our streets or online (…) the government will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities”. To which Musk replied, “shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”
It is probably safe to say that the “clash” didn’t end here, and the British government will try to impose more limits on social media.
Another important aspect that shall be considered is the cause of the “far-right thuggery”.
While violence shall never be the answer to one’s problems, and it were far-right activists that poured fuel on the fire, it should not be ignored that many in the crowd are people with grievances and problems that were (and still are) neglected by the government. Who feel that they have been forgotten.
The protests are no longer about the deaths of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar.
Not, because not even the disclosure of the identity of the perpetrator (a British citizen born to Christian parents in Cardiff, Wales, with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, who had “reportedly been unwilling to leave the house and communicate with family for a period of time”) could stop the violence.
When PM Keir Starmer went to Southport to join the vigil for the victims, a woman questioned him for not being able to help the situation. Amongst the people who started to protest in the city, there were many who travelled there from other places. But there were also local people who were concerned about the impact of immigration, and economic issues.
While the UK economy has shown some signs of improvement, it is still far from booming. A little more than a year ago it faced the biggest fall in living standards on record, inflation was at a 41-year high and so on. Recovery (reaching pre-pandemic levels) is not expected until 2028.
It was probably not a coincidence, that Nigel Farage (and his upstart Reform UK party) has been elected to parliament for the first time in July, having won 5 seats, a “comparatively strong showing in Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system”.
The riots must be stopped, but the deeper running long-term problems (as Farage put it) will remain if the political response stops at “far-right thuggery”.
It will be just the question of time when it will be ignited again by provocateurs.
