London August 4 2024: A fresh outburst of violent disorder broke out in several English towns and cities on Sunday, further escalating the most widespread far-right violence in the UK for years.
The unrest is the first big test for the Labour government, which took office last month after 14 years in opposition. It has been fuelled by a torrent of Islamophobic and anti-immigrant disinformation spread on social media since a mass stabbing in Southport near Liverpool last week.
Far-right influencers falsely blamed the attack, in which three young girls were killed and eight other children injured, on a Muslim and used the incident to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment.
On Sunday, a far-right protest in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham turned violent as masked rioters stormed a hotel housing asylum seekers.
The demonstration had begun several hours earlier but escalated as the crowd began pelting officers with debris and bottles. Footage posted online showed a bin being set on fire outside the hotel and a mob smashing their way inside.
South Yorkshire Police said that at least 10 of its officers were injured in the clashes, which were attended by more than 700 people. No staff or residents of the hotel had been reported injured, but they were left “terrified”, the police said.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper said the rioters “deliberately” set fire to the building “with people known to be inside” and urged police to take “the strongest action against those responsible”.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the scenes across England this week were not protests but “violent thuggery” and that participants would face the “full force of the law”.
“This is not a protest, it is organised violent thuggery and it has no place on our streets or online,” he said.
Mosques across the country will be offered new emergency security measures, Cooper announced. The police, local authorities and mosques will be able to ask for rapid security to be deployed in the event of disorder breaking out.
Around 150 disorder-related arrests had been made across England by Saturday evening and the numbers are expected to rise in the coming days, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
Some 300 protesters marched through Middlesbrough in North Yorkshire on Sunday afternoon before breaking through a police line in the city centre, throwing projectiles including pieces of slate and plastic bottles, and smashing up cars, police vans and buildings.
Ahead of the gathering, calls to stage a full-scale riot had circulated online. Cleveland Police said they were dealing with the disorder and had made a “number of arrests”.
In Bolton, Greater Manchester, police issued a dispersal order on Sunday afternoon as several hundred demonstrators and counter-demonstrators gathered in the town hall square.
Missiles were thrown as tensions escalated and the protests spilled out across the town centre, with the two sides confronting one another while police attempted to keep them separate.
Starmer condemned the targeting of Muslim and other ethnic minority communities, including attacks on mosques. He said that police had been attacked, while “wanton violence” was carried out by individuals making Nazi salutes.
He added: “This violent mob does not represent our country and we will bring them to justice.”
Starmer said officials had held meetings throughout the weekend to ensure the necessary support and arrangements were in place to handle the disturbances and speed up the processing of arrests, charges and convictions.
He said that, after riots in 2011, the Crown Prosecution Service led the prosecutions of thousands of people involved. Starmer was director of public prosecutions at the time.
Judges were on Sunday considering keeping courts open all night to work through the backlog of cases, as they did in the wake of the 2011 riots.
The Crown Prosecution Service said that additional lawyers had been deployed this weekend and would “work around the clock” in the coming days to make charging decisions and bring forward prosecutions.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said 4,000 extra officers were in place across the country to deal with any further outbreaks of violence.
South Yorkshire Police assistant chief constable Lindsey Butterfield said “those who simply stood on and watched” the rioting in Rotherham were “absolutely complicit in this”, and “those who choose to spread misinformation and hate online also need to take responsibility for the scenes today”.
Rioters “should expect us to be at their doors very soon”, she added.
South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard called the scenes in Rotherham “brutal thuggery directed against some of the most vulnerable people in our society”.
Former prime minister and leader of the opposition Rishi Sunak said the violence had nothing to do with the tragedy in Southport. “This is violent, criminal behaviour that has no place in our society . . . [those involved] must face the full weight of the law,” he posted on X.
Shadow home secretary James Cleverly said there was no “justification or rationale” for the violence.
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen said: “Law and order must be upheld . . . Most right-minded people can see this is being led by a group of thugs who care little about the issues they hide behind and are simply intent on causing trouble.”
