One police officer in the city was hit on the head with a chair and another kicked and knocked off his motorcycle. The police force responsible for the region has confirmed that two officers were taken to the hospital with injuries.
Starmer denounced the violence Saturday, saying that the right to freedom of expression 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 southwest city of Bristol groups shouted “we want our country back,” while others chanted “England ‘til I die.” There were also clashes with counter protesters singing “racist scum, off our streets.”
The latest demonstrations follow a week of riots in the country after three young 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 a 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 Europe invasion, depicting a man in traditional Muslim dress waving a knife outside the U.K.’s houses of parliament. The post has since been viewed over 900,000 times.
A Tiktok account with no previous content that called for protests near the attack site also amassed almost 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 beset by violence as a group of mostly white men threw bottles and bricks at police officers and a mosque.
Despite being under the age of 18, reporting restrictions that had prevented the naming of the suspect were eventually lifted in order to stop the spread of misinformation after a false name circulated online.
As it happens, the suspect Axel Rudakubana, 17, was born in the Welsh capital of Cardiff and had lived for years in a village near Southport itself, police said. The motive behind the stabbings remains unknown.
But the violence has continued all the same by a far-right galvanized by a surge in support at the U.K.’s recent general elections and its longstanding perception that mass immigration is draining the nation’s resources and threatening its children.
And in another sign of the far right’s effective online presence, the call to mobilize has been spearheaded by a number of influential figures who command a sizeable following but are absent on the ground.
Founder of the far right English Defence League Tommy Robinson — who fled Britain last week where he was due to be in court over alleged contempt proceedings — was among the first to call for nationwide protests, urging his 800,000 X followers to “hit the streets.” Other online personalities such as internet influencer Andrew Tate, who remains in Romania as he prepares to stand trial for sex trafficking, said in a video on X that the attacker was an “illegal immigrant.”
More than 30 protests were planned for the weekend, and thousands of extra riot police are on standby with further demonstrations expected on Sunday.
About 100 demonstrators supporting refugees gathered outside a hotel in Rotherham early Sunday afternoon that is believed to house asylum seekers, chanting “refugees are welcome here,” as groups opposing asylum seekers threw objects at the hotel.
Britain’s policing minister told BBC Radio 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 constables across the nation have also condemned the violence.
While the center-left Labour party recently won a landslide victory in the UK’s July elections, that left-ward shift was paired with rising support for the far-right Reform U.K. party, which won four million votes.
And Labour’s success was at least partly down to the far right’s rising popularity, which split the right-wing vote that causing many Conservative lawmakers to lose their seats in parliament.
The latest demonstrations puncture any idea that Starmer’s center-left government has evaded an ascendant hard-right movement that continues to rise on the continent. Behind his majority, there remains an angry and active far right undercurrent that continues to make itself heard.
