Far-right demonstrators have vandalised a hotel housing asylum seekers in the northern England town of Rotherham, as the United Kingdom grapples with its worst riots in 13 years.
On Sunday, hundreds of people gathered by a Holiday Inn Express hotel used to house asylum seekers near Rotherham, before throwing bricks at police and breaking several hotel windows, and then setting bins on fire.
Footage from UK broadcaster 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 hotel.
A police helicopter circled overhead, and at least one injured officer in riot gear was carried away as the atmosphere turned increasingly febrile.
The unrest is the latest bout of rioting in the UK that has gripped the nation, following a stabbing rampage at a dance class last week in the north of England that left three girls dead and several wounded.
According to police officials, false rumours spread online that the young man in the Southport stabbing was a Muslim and an immigrant, fuelling anger among the far-right in the country.
Speaking on Sunday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “there is no justification” for the far-right violence, which has led to attacks on mosques and assaults on Muslims and ethnic minorities.
“People in this country have a right to be safe and yet we have seen Muslim communities targeted and attacks on mosques,” Starmer said.
The prime minister added that “he won’t shy away from calling it [the rioting] what it is” and that is “far-right thuggery”.
“To those who feel targeted because of the colour of your skin or your faith, I know how frightening this must be,” he said.
“I want you to know this violent mob do not represent this country and we will bring them to justice.”
Starmer had been criticised by some for not being vocal enough in denouncing the explicitly racist and Islamophobic nature of some of the attacks committed by those rioting.
Zarah Sultana, a Labour MP who is currently suspended from the party for voting against the government, called on social media for Parliament to be recalled from its summer break.
This is the moment rioters set fire to grass in Rotherham with police holding the line across from them.
Rioters were also breaking into a Holiday Inn hotel and throwing items towards police. https://t.co/U56wIrPQTO
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/TgQI0AWSyD
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 4, 2024
Xenophobic rhetoric
Elsewhere in the UK, the atmosphere has also been particularly tense. In the northeast town of Middlesborough, protesters broke free of a police guard. As protests began in Bolton, near Manchester, police said that a dispersal notice had been authorised to give officers extra powers to tackle anti-social behaviour.
Police officials have 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 a narrative – amplified by right-wing media outlets and commentators – about the scale of immigration in the country, in particular the tens of thousands of migrants and refugees arriving in small boats from France across the English Channel.
Critics have repeatedly pointed out that the spread of misinformation and the amplification of xenophobic rhetoric about immigrants and minority communities in the UK has led to the current outbreak of violence.
Rosa Freedman, a professor at the University of Reading, told Al Jazeera that the riots in the UK are a result of the former Conservative government, which lost power last month, giving legitimacy to a small minority of “racists”.
“Instead of hiding their faces, they have now been coming out … we cannot blame a Labour party that has [only] been in government [for] the past four weeks,” she said.
“There is a conversation that needs to be had in the UK and other countries about immigration …. we also need to tackle this from a human rights lens.”
Police have noted that calls to hold riots 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 the Merseyside Police has linked to the violent protest in Southport on Tuesday, a day after the stabbing attack. Yaxley-Lennon, 41, 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.
Meanwhile, 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, Farage 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”.
The anti-far-right group Hope Not Hate condemned the framing of the protests as “outpourings of legitimate anger”.
“They are not. This is racist violence spurred on by far-right hatred,” the group said in a statement. “Those directly involved in these horrifying scenes need to face the full force of the law.”
“Responsibility also lies with those who have promoted and defended these riots such as Tommy Robinson. This explosion of racist violence across the country is the result of years of far-right agitation,” the group said. “However, these events are also the result of a climate of anti-Muslim and anti-asylum seeker hostility stoked by elements of our media and supposedly mainstream politicians.”