Night of destruction across UK as racist mobs go wild after Southport stabbings

Far-right riots broke out in parts of the UK for the second night running on Wednesday, with a mob attacking an Asian man and dozens of police officers injured.

The racist attacks were sparked by misinformation spread online following a stabbing that left three children dead and eight injured during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on Monday.

Although police and media said the 17-year-old suspect was born in Cardiff, misinformation quickly spread online that he was a Muslim “illegal immigrant”, sparking an attack on a mosque in the same city and subsequent rioting.

On Thursday, the suspect was identified as Axel Rudakubana. It was reported that restrictions preventing his name from being released had been lifted and he appeared at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court to face the charges.

Just hours earlier on Wednesday evening, crowds took to the streets in London, Hartlepool, Hampshire and Manchester, many of them clashing with police officers.

In the north-east seaside town of Hartlepool, where a crowd threw glass bottles and eggs at officers and set fire to a police car, a man who appeared to be South Asian was punched in an apparently unprovoked racially motivated attack.

The video shows a man walking alone down the street before being punched in front of a crowd by a white man wearing a baseball cap.

The Asian man is seen turning around and walking back the way he came while others in the crowd shout “this is our city” and hurl racist slurs at him.

The riots came a day after hundreds of masked protesters besieged a mosque in Southport, during which they destroyed a wall surrounding the mosque, smashed several windows, threw flowerpots, bricks and empty bins at police and set fire to a police van.

The mosque’s imam was trapped inside for hours. He later admitted that he was very afraid that the crowd would “burn the place down” while he was there.

The crowd, which chanted anti-Muslim slogans, also vandalized nearby shops.

According to police, it included supporters of the English Defence League (EDL).

Disinformation campaign on the Internet

Social media figures including the covert far-right activist Tommy Robinson, former GB News presenter Laurence Fox and influencer Andrew Tate were involved in spreading disinformation to millions of people.

Some of it has been traced to a website called Channel3Now, which claims to be an American news organization but is accused of being run from Russia. It began 11 years ago as a Russian YouTube channel.

“We are not based in Russia and have no ties to Russian media or sources”

– Channel3Now, one of the sources providing a false name for the suspect

Channel3Now was the original source of the viral claim that the Southport striker was called Ali Al-Shakati.

The statement was repeated Tuesday by Russian state television Russia Today, which later added an editor’s note to its article saying the station had retracted its statement.

Channel3Now told Middle East Eye in an email on Wednesday: “We are not based in Russia and are not affiliated in any way with Russian media or sources.”

On Thursday, Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, said Russian fake news about the knife attacks was part of Vladimir Putin’s “grey war” against Britain.

Throwing flares at the gates of Downing Street

About 100 people were arrested in London on Wednesday night as protesters threw flares at the gates of Downing Street and were filmed scuffling with police.

Nearby, for unexplained reasons, crowds were throwing flares at the statue of Winston Churchill, Britain’s universally revered wartime prime minister.

🚨GROUNDBREAKING Far-right protesters in London broke through police lines to pay their respects to the victims of the Southport tragedy, chanting ‘Oh Tommy Tommy’ and setting off smoke bombs next to the statue of Winston Churchill photo: twitter.com/xyiLxT4Pvz

— Stand Up to Racism (@AntiRacismDay) July 31, 2024

Some protesters wore T-shirts reading “We demand Nigel Farage be appointed Prime Minister”, while others wore red caps with the slogan “Make Britain Great Again”, an apparent reference to Donald Trump’s famous saying.

“More than 100 people were arrested on suspicion of offences including violent disorder, assaulting an emergency worker and breaching the terms of the protest,” the Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday evening, after the crowd dispersed at around 10pm.

Siege of hotels and attacks on passers-by

Meanwhile, in the north-west city of Manchester, a crowd of about 40 people, including several children, besieged a Holiday Inn hotel where asylum seekers were staying.

Members of the crowd pelted passers-by with beer bottles, while others smashed the bus’s wing mirrors, dragged the man from the vehicle and physically attacked him.

In Aldershot, south Hampshire, an anti-immigration protest outside a hotel “degenerated into intimidating behaviour”, local MP Alex Baker said.

However, the most violent riots occurred in Hartlepool, where a man of Asian origin was attacked and a police car was set on fire.

The video shows masked men shouting racist slogans and fighting with police officers with wooden batons.

Others sang praise for far-right icon Robinson, who is believed to be hiding in Europe, having fled the UK on Sunday to “get out of the reach of (British) authorities”. Robinson was due to face trial over alleged contempt of court proceedings.

The crowd was recorded smashing a window of the house and trying to break down the door.

The local Salaam Community Centre, which organises interfaith events and supports refugees, was also reportedly threatened and defended by police officers. Eight arrests were made.

Starmer still hasn’t condemned Islamophobia

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is due to meet senior police officers in Downing Street on Thursday afternoon to discuss the situation following the riots.

On Tuesday night he promised that those responsible for “violence and thuggery” in Southport would “feel the full force of the law”.

However, some commentators criticised Starmer for failing to highlight the anti-Muslim and racist bigotry that apparently fuelled the riots.

And excuse me, where is Keir Starmer? If it were Muslims rioting across the country, you can bet there would be a press conference in Downing Street.

People of color need to have clear assurances that this country is safe for them.

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) August 1, 2024

It appears the Prime Minister has not met with leaders of the Muslim community.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner suggested on Wednesday that the unrest was being fuelled by disinformation on social media and that the Home Office would “consider” whether the EDL should be banned under terrorism laws.

The same day, Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s former Muslim First Minister, blamed the Southport riots on “the hateful ideology of the far right” and called on the government to ban the EDL.

The EDL, founded in 2009, is a far-right anti-Muslim group whose leader was Tommy Robinson until he stepped down in 2013.

The Muslim Council of Britain said on Wednesday evening it had written to the Home Secretary asking him to “ensure that mosques and communities are protected”.

It comes after Nigel Farage, the newly elected MP for Clacton and leader of Reform UK, came under fire for a video he posted on Tuesday suggesting the “truth is being hidden” from the public about the killings.

Farage, who this week was called “Tommy Robinson in a suit” by the husband of an MP murdered by a far-right attacker in 2016, has since defended his comments and stood by them.