Police in the northern England town of Rotherham have struggled to hold back a mob of far-right rioters seeking to break into a hotel believed to be housing asylum seekers.
The latest bout of rioting on Sunday following a stabbing rampage at a dance class last week that left three girls dead and several wounded showed few signs of abating.
Footage from Sky News showed a line of police officers with shields facing a barrage of missiles, including bits of wood, chairs and fire extinguishers, as they sought to prevent the rioters from entering the Holiday Inn Express hotel. A small fire was also visible while windows in the hotel were smashed.
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A police helicopter circled overhead, and at least one injured officer in riot gear was carried away as the atmosphere turned increasingly febrile.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the “far-right thuggery”, highlighting attacks on mosques and police, Nazi salutes in the street and the targeting of minority communities.
“This is not protest. It is organised, violent thuggery, and it has no place on our streets or online,” he said, on Sunday afternoon (early Monday AEST).
“Right now, there are attacks happening on a hotel in Rotherham, marauding gangs intent on law breaking or worse. Windows smashed, fire set ablaze, residents and staff in absolute fear.
“There is no justification, none, for taking this action, and all right minded people should be condemning this sort of violence.”
Starmer addressed the people feeling “targeted because of the colour of your skin or your faith”. He assured them the recent violence did not represent the country and promised to do “whatever it takes to bring these thugs to justice”.
“The message is absolutely clear that if you’re taking part in this violence, you will regret it, and you’ll be brought to justice as quickly as possible,” he said.
More demonstrations are expected to take place around the UK, but mainly in England, with many counter-demonstrators also set to make their presence felt.
In the north-east town of Middlesborough, riot police sought to hold back demonstrators and even used dogs to prevent them running ahead of the officers patrolling the march.
On Saturday, far-right activists faced off with anti-racism protesters across the UK, with violent scenes playing out from Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, to Liverpool in the north-west of England and Bristol in the west.
About 100 people were arrested but more are likely as police scour CCTV, social media and footage from body-worn cameras.
In just one incident on Saturday, Merseyside Police said about 300 people were involved in violent disorder in Liverpool, which saw a community facility set on fire. The Spellow Lane Library Hub, which was opened last year to provide support for one of the most deprived communities in the country, suffered severe damage to the ground floor.
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Police have also warned that widespread security measures, with thousands of officers deployed, mean that other crimes may not be investigated fully.
“We’re seeing officers that are being pulled from day-to-day policing,” Tiffany Lynch from the Police Federation of England and Wales told the BBC.
“But while that’s happening, the communities that are out there that are having incidents against them — victims of crime — unfortunately, their crimes are not being investigated.”
The violence erupted earlier this week, ostensibly in protest of Monday’s stabbing attack in Southport. A 17-year-old male has been arrested.
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False rumours spread online that the young man was a Muslim and an immigrant, fuelling anger among far-right supporters.
Suspects under 18 are usually not named in the UKbut Judge Andrew Menary ordered Axel Rudakubana, born in Wales to Rwandan parents, to be identified, in part to stop the spread of misinformation. Rudakubana has been charged with three counts of murder, and 10 counts of attempted murder.
Police said many of the actions are being organised online by shadowy far-right groups, who are mobilising support online with phrases like “enough is enough”, “save our kids” and “stop the boats”.
They are tapping into concerns about the scale of immigration in the country, in particular the tens of thousands of migrants arriving in small boats from France across the English Channel.
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Calls for protests have come from a diffuse group of social media accounts, but a key player in amplifying them is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a longtime far-right agitator who uses the name Tommy Robinson.
He led the English Defence League, which Merseyside Police has linked to the violent protest in Southport on Tuesday, a day after the stabbing attack.
The group first appeared around 2009, leading a series of protests against what it described as militant Islam that often devolved into violence. Yaxley-Lennon was banned from Twitter in 2018 but allowed back after it was bought by Elon Musk and rebranded as X. He has more than 800,000 followers.
The group’s membership and impact declined after a few years, and Yaxley-Lennon, 41, has faced myriad legal issues. He has been jailed for assault, contempt of court and mortgage fraud and currently faces an arrest warrant after leaving the UK last week before a scheduled hearing in contempt-of-court proceedings against him.
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Nigel Farage, who was elected to parliament in July for the first time as leader of Reform UK, has also been blamed by many for encouraging — indirectly — the anti-immigration sentiment that has been evident over the past few days.
While condemning the violence, he has criticised the government for blaming it on “a few far-right thugs” and saying “the far right is a reaction to fear … shared by tens of millions of people”.
Far-right demonstrators have held several violent gatherings since the stabbing attack, clashing with police Tuesday outside a mosque in Southport — near the scene of the stabbing — and hurling beer cans, bottles and flares near the prime minister’s office in London the next day. Many in Southport have expressed their anger at the organised acts of violence in the wake of the tragedy.
Starmer, has blamed the violence on “far-right hatred” and vowed to end the mayhem. He said police across the UK would be given more resources to stop “a breakdown in law and order on our streets”.
Policing minister Diana Johnson told the BBC that there is “no need” to bring in the army to help police in their efforts to confront the violence.
“The police have made it very clear that they have all the resources they need at the moment,” she said.
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