A police officer stands guard facing towards anti-immigration protesters in Rotherham, Britain, August 4, 2024.
Credit: Reuters Photo
London: Police forces across the UK have made at least 100 arrests as violent clashes and unrest involving anti-immigration far-right groups continued to spread over the weekend, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer offering his full support to officers to take firm action against the “extremists”.
Bricks being hurled, fireworks thrown, windows of a hotel housing asylum seekers smashed, shops attacked and set on fire and several scuffles breaking out between mobs and the police were among the scenes of confrontation that played out in Liverpool, Hull, Bristol, Leeds, Blackpool, Stoke-on-Trent, Belfast, Nottingham and Manchester on Saturday.
UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper warned the mobs they will “pay the price” for such "criminal disorder and violent thuggery".
“Addressing the scenes of disorder we have seen, the Prime Minister set out that the police have our full support to take action against extremists on our streets who are attacking police officers, disrupting local businesses and attempting to sow hate by intimidating communities,” Downing Street said after a high-level meeting of ministers convened by Starmer on Saturday.
“The Prime Minister ended by saying the right to freedom of expression and the violent disorder we have seen are two very different things. He said there is no excuse for violence of any kind and reiterated that the government backs the police to take all necessary action to keep our streets safe,” the statement added.
Groups that monitor anti-Muslim incidents across the UK have said there has been an increase in reports from British Muslims expressing concerns for their safety, with many scared to visit their local mosques.
“People particularly are frightened because of the colour of their skin, and that cannot be right and that is something this government will take every action to deal with," UK Policing Minister Diana Johnson told the BBC.
"When I saw people looting some of the shops in the city centre, that's nothing to do with genuine protest or people having different opinions about immigration. That's about criminal behaviour that needs to be dealt with," she said, warning the culprits there are "sufficient prison places" for such "criminal behaviour".
Officials at the UK Ministry of Justice are said to be in discussions with the judiciary, as well as police chiefs and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for magistrates’ courts to open longer hours to speedily process the expected surge in the number of people in custody for riot-related offences.
Wales-born Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, 17, from Lancashire, has been charged with the stabbing attack on the Taylor Swift theme children’s dance workshop in Southport, north-west England, which was the first site of the unrest earlier in the week.
It was triggered after false claims spread online that the suspect, who is of Rwandan heritage, was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK on a small boat. Since then, misinformation has continued to spread across social media and resulted in violent demonstrations involving anti-immigrant chants by protesters in different parts of the country.
Merseyside Police in Southport publicly identified the English Defence League (EDL) as a key factor – a group that does not exist in a formal sense but its founder, Tommy Robinson, is associated with using the social media space to whip up far-right sentiments.
Stand Up to Racism, among the groups organising some of the counter-protests, has warned that the activities of the extremist mobs must not be "unopposed”.