Prime Minister Keir Starmer has condemned the far right for the unrest and backed police to take strong action…reports Asian Lite News
Far-right protesters have clashed with police at several rallies as unrest linked to misinformation about the murder of three young girls in a stabbing attack spread across the United Kingdom.
Riots involving hundreds of far-right anti-immigration protesters have erupted in several towns and cities in recent days after false information spread rapidly on social media that the suspect in Monday’s knife attack at a dance class for children in Southport was a Muslim immigrant.
Police have said the suspect, Axel Rudakubana, 17, was born in Cardiff, Wales, but protests by anti-immigration and anti-Muslim demonstrators have continued, descending into violence and rioting, including in the northeastern city of Sunderland on Friday evening.
Demonstrators threw chairs, flares and bricks at officers in the northwestern English city of Liverpool, while scuffles between police and protesters broke out in nearby Manchester.
Merseyside Police said “a number of officers have been injured as they deal with serious disorder” in Liverpool city centre.
In Belfast, Northern Ireland, fireworks were thrown amid tense exchanges between an anti-Muslim group and an anti-racism rally.
Some businesses in the city reported damage to property.
In Leeds, approximately 150 people carrying English flags chanted, “You’re not English any more” while counterprotesters shouted “Nazi scum off our streets”. Opposing groups of protesters also faced off in the central city of Nottingham.
Authorities in the eastern city of Hull said four people were arrested and three officers were injured while dealing with protests where bottles were thrown.
At protests in London, police arrested several people including one for making a Nazi salute towards a counter-protester.
Mosques across the country have been advised to strengthen security, while police have deployed extra officers.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, facing his first big test since being elected a month ago, has condemned the “far right” for the violence and backed police to take strong action.
Starmer held talks with senior ministers on Saturday and said there was “no excuse for violence” at the protests.
The last time major widespread violence erupted in the UK was in 2011 when thousands took to the streets for five nights after police shot dead a Black man in London.
On Friday night, hundreds of anti-immigration demonstrators in Sunderland threw stones at police in riot gear near a mosque, before overturning vehicles, setting a car alight and starting a fire near a police station.
Four injured police officers were taken to hospital and 12 people were arrested, Mark Hall, chief police superintendent of the Sunderland area, told reporters on Saturday.
“This was not a protest. This was unforgivable violence and disorder,” Hall said.
Rioters will “pay the price” for the wave of violent clashes that has spread across the UK, ministers warned on Saturday, after a day in which police battled rival groups of demonstrators in the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Britain for more than a decade.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper said the police would have the government’s full support to take the strongest possible action. “Criminal violence and disorder have no place on Britain’s streets,” she said.
“Anyone who gets involved in criminal disorder and violent thuggery on our streets will have to pay the price and they should expect there to be arrests, prosecutions, penalties, and the full force of the law including imprisonment and travel bans. There are consequences for breaking the law.”
The widespread nature of the clashes poses the first major challenge to Keir Starmer’s new government, which is now facing demands to introduce emergency powers to stop further violence and to recall parliament.
In the protests that spread across the nation, bricks were hurled at police officers in Stoke-on-Trent, fireworks were thrown amid tense exchanges between an anti-Islamic group and an anti-racism rally in Belfast, and windows of a hotel which has been used to house migrants were smashed in Hull, where three police officers were injured and four people arrested. Several officers were also injured during “serious disorder” in Liverpool city centre, where bricks, bottles and a flare were thrown and one officer hit on the head with a chair. Greater Manchester police said a dispersal notice had been authorised for the city centre and scuffles broke out as opposing groups faced each other in Nottingham’s Old Market Square with bottles and other items thrown from both sides.
About 150 people carrying St George’s Cross flags, shouting “you’re not English any more” and “paedo Muslims off our street”, were greatly outnumbered in Leeds by hundreds of counter-protesters shouting “Nazi scum off our streets”. Skirmishes broke out between demonstrators and punks – in town for a festival – in Blackpool, with bottles and chairs being thrown.
Keir Starmer held a meeting of senior ministers on Saturday in which he said police had been given full support to tackle extremists who were attempting “to sow hate by intimidating communities”. He also made it clear that the right to freedom of expression and the violent scenes over recent days were “two very different things”.