British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said violent protestors who had targeted Muslim communities would swiftly face the full force of law as he sought to quell days of anti-immigration rioting. The fatal stabbing of the three young girls in the northwestern English town of Southport last week has been seized on by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups with disinformation spread online to spark disorder in towns and cities.
“Whatever the apparent motivation, this is not a protest, it is violence and we will not tolerate attacks on our mosques or Muslim communities,” Starmer said on August 5, 2024 after an emergency meeting with the police and prison chiefs. “The full force of law will be visited on all those who are identified as having taken part,” he added.
Police chiefs said they had arrested 378 people since the start of the unrest and warned of lengthy prison terms for those found guilty of violent disorder. The violence erupted on July 30, 2024 after social media posts said the suspect attacker in Southport was a radical Islamist who had just arrived in Britain and was known to intelligence services.
According to the police, the 17-year-old suspect was born in Britain and they are not treating it as a terrorist incident. The suspect’s parents had moved to Britain from Rwanda. Interior Yvette Cooper said rioters had felt emboldened to stir up racial hatred and that the protests were not a proportionate response to concerns about the near record levels of immigration. “Reasonable people don’t throw rocks and bricks onto the police,” she said.
Protests, mostly involving a few hundred people have continued across the country with shops looted and mosques along with Asian owned businesses attacked. Cars have been set on fire and some unverified videos have emerged showing ethnic minorities being beaten up. Australia and Nigeria were among the countries to issue warnings on August 5, 2024 to citizens (residents) or traveling to Britain.
In the evening of August 5, 2024, protests spread to Plymouth in southwest England. Several hundred anti-immigration protestors wearing English and British flags faced off against a greater number of counter-protestors kept apart by the police in violent gear. Protestors threw bricks and fireworks along with scuffling with police.
A British media agency said three police officers were injured. In Rotherham, Northern England, protestors on August 4, 2024 tried to break into a hotel where asylum seekers in what Starmer called act of thuggery following protests on August 3, 2024 in other cities and in Belfast. Starmer said that a standing army of specialist police officers would tackle outbreaks of violence where needed.
The Police have blamed online disinformation amplified by high profile figures for driving the violence. Stephen Lennon also known as Tommy Robinson and the leader of the defunct anti-Islam English Defence League has been blamed by the media for spreading disinformation to his 875,000 followers on X. “They are lying to you all, Lennon said. “Attempting to turn the nation against me. I need you, you are my voice,” he said.
Elon Musk, the owner of X also weighed in. Responding to a post on X that blamed mass migration and open borders for the disorder in Britain and wrote Civil War is Inevitable. Starmer’s spokesperson said that there was no justification for Musk’s comments. Musk later criticised Starmer for a post on X which identified mosques as needing particular protection.
In London’s Whitechapel, a lawyer named MA Gani said that the British Bangladeshi community was living in fear. “We have never seen this kind of groups being so active and anti-immigrant,” he said. British technology minister Peter Kyle met representatives of social media platforms including X to remind them of their responsibility to stop the spread of racial hate and incitement to violence. There is a significant amount of content circulating platforms need to be dealing with at pace,” he said.
