Britain and the North of Ireland are suffering a mid-summer epidemic of racist violence.
So far at least 400 people have been arrested for attacking Muslims and other minority groups. While racist violence isn’t new, almost everybody has been surprised by how fast the rioting has spread. It has been triggered by social media misinformation but builds on rhetoric from both far right and mainstream politicians.
In Sunderland, a post-industrial city in northeast England, mobs attacked the city centre, including a citizens’ advice bureau and local pubs, before marching on Millfield Mosque, on August 2. At one point, according to a local priest, attempts were made to smash up tomb stones outside the historic Sunderland Minster to use as ammunition.
In Rotherham and Tamworth, far-right groups attempted to burn down hotels sheltering asylum seekers. In Belfast, a café was destroyed and in Liverpool, a library wrecked.
Far-right lies
The trigger was a lie. The murder of three girls at a dance studio in Southport near Liverpool on July 29 was weaponised by far-right networks via social media, with tweets and other posts claiming that a Muslim asylum seeker on an MI5 watch list was the killer.
This proved to be entirely false; the suspected killer was neither a Muslim nor an asylum seeker, but was born in Wales.
However on the basis of the lie, far-right Telegram channels called for protests. The first of these — badged as a vigil for the murdered girls — led to significant violence in Southport. Sunderland followed. By the weekend, there were dozens of violent events, which then spread.
Many towns with small Muslim populations had their local mosques targeted by murderous mobs. For example, in England’s north east, an attack on the Millfield mosque in Sunderland was followed by assaults on Islamic centres and mosques in other towns, such as Hartlepool and Stockton.
Britain has a growing far-right movement that has made its presence known on our streets this summer.
Historical legacy
There is a history of far-right mobilisation. For example, the fascist British National Party (BNP) was active in Sunderland around the turn of the century. When the BNP effectively disappeared from British politics, the euro sceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) picked up votes and councillors in the city.
In July’s general election, the most recent electoral manifestation of the far right — the Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage — came second to Labour in the Sunderland constituencies.
In the Sunderland Central constituency, Reform got 27% of the vote, with Labour winning on 42%. While Reform does not advocate violence and the majority of Reform voters are not part of a violent movement, there is an enduring network of far-right activist in the city and anti-immigrant sentiments amongst a significant section of local voters.
In the 1970s, far-right political parties such as the National Front (NF) had a presence on the streets. This is not the case in 2024. Reform doesn’t organise on the streets and far right parties that do, such as the Patriotic Alternative, are small.
Instead, the far right has overlapping and to some extent informal networks. There have been calls to ban the English Defence League (EDL) as a terrorist organisation, but the EDL has long ceased to exist as a formal organisation.
While it might be an exaggeration to say the far-right violence is leaderless, it is largely decentralised or simply chaotic in nature.
Tommy Robinson the former leader of the EDL, does have a significant following, however.
A week before the riots broke out he hosted a large far-right gathering in Trafalgar Square in London, with a kaleidoscope of speakers and 20,000 in attendance.
Robinson left Britain before the riots, but can be seen as a key figure nurturing far-right networks. He is a master of disinformation — or to put it more simply, “lies” — and is currently being charged with showing a libellous film at the Trafalgar Square rally.
There isn’t an equivalent of the British Union of Fascist’s Oswald Mosley, who fermented street violence in the 1930s and ‘50s, or of National Front leaders John Tyndall and Martin Webster in the 1970s and ‘80s. Things are more fluid, reflecting global trends on the right.
Conspiracy theory is a large part of the mix. This isn’t entirely new, as the Nazis and others on the far right traditionally promoted antisemitic conspiracies.
A K Chesterton, the first leader of Britain’s National Front, wrote The New Unhappy Lords in 1965 — which linked shadowy globalist institutions to the Soviets and big businesses — to explain the dissolution of the British Empire.
Today, anti-vaxxers and anti-net zero conspiracy theorists have expanded the reach of the far right considerably.
Labour, Tories culpable
The newly-elected Keir Starmer Labour government has promised a police crackdown and challenged social media boss Elon Musk for his role in spreading disinformation. Musk has toxified X (formerly Twitter) by removing staff who checked for abusive content. Amplifying right-wing claims, Musk has suggested that Britain is headed for inevitable civil war.
However, it is inadequate to simply blame social media and to call for stiff sentences for rioters, as Starmer has done. Mainstream politicians from Labour and the Conservatives have normalised right-wing talking points. The Conservatives in recent years have focussed on immigration as a key policy objective with the slogan “Stop the boats” and promises to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Previous Labour governments have promoted anti-immigrant slogans. Starmer’s comments to an audience of right-wing The Sun newspaper readers during the election campaign that, “At the moment people coming from countries like Bangladesh are not being removed”, caused outrage, and a Labour Councillor quit the party over the comment.
Conservative ministers in the previous government routinely referred to asylum seekers as an invading force, echoing the rhetoric of the far right.
Thus the outbreak of violence — while triggered by disinformation from conspiracy orientated and far right networks — taps into something deeper. Britain has stagnated in recent decades, child poverty has risen, local government, universities and other institutions are in crisis.
Politicians and the media have, to some extent, displaced this crisis with far-right talking points, nurturing racism and violence.
Counter-mobilisations
However, there are powerful counter-movements and the Muslim community are increasingly organised to challenge the violence and work with other faith communities. Muslims are being elected as local councillors and MPs, via the Green Party and as independents.
While far-right violence has blighted much of the country this month, Muslims, trade unionists and the wider left have mobilised against it.
In many cities and towns, such as Cardiff and Bristol, anti-fascist mobilisations have outnumbered the far right, preventing their attacks on Muslims and others.
Positively, the most recent development has been the emergence of often huge counter-mobilisations. In Bristol, Brighton, Derby, North London and other locations, tens of thousands of anti-racists have taken back the streets with music and a party atmosphere, marginalising the far right.
To challenge the riotous racists, counter-mobilisations are essential. However, to overcome Britain’s racist upsurge, a wider challenge to the normalisation of Islamphobia and other forms of racism/sectarianism is essential.
Self-criticism on the part of the Labour leadership would help in this regard, but looks, sadly, unlikely.
Racist populist movements have grown in the past decade. From Donald Trump’s Republicans to Narendra Modi’s anti-Islamic BJP and the growth of the Marine Le Pen’s vote in France, far-right hatred has a global reach.
Ultimately, only the construction of vibrant left alternatives will defeat these regressive movements — internationally and here in Britain.
[Derek Wall is a former leader of the Green Party of England and Wales and a prominent ecosocialist, academic and writer.]