Number
* 400 people were arrested after six days of rioting in parts of England and Northern Ireland.
* 6,000 police officers were mobilized across the country to deal with more expected unrest.
Alex Whiteman
LONDON: Riots have engulfed Britain and Northern Ireland in the past week amid a cloud of misinformation and government failures. However, commentators differ on the root causes beyond claims of “far-right harassment”.
Not since 2011, when the police shooting of a black man sparked days of nationwide rioting, has Britain seen scenes of such violence, with crowds of people storming shops, setting cars on fire, targeting mosques and even hotels hosting refugees. were set on fire. .
Everyone from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to the world's second-richest man, Elon Musk – who has likened the scenes in Britain to a civil war – have weighed in on what caused the riots and what they could mean for the country. , have measured
Responding to Sunday's attempted arson at a Holiday Inn Express hotel in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where asylum seekers were being held awaiting a decision on their status, Starmer said rioters would face the “full force of the law”.
“I guarantee you will regret participating in this disruption, either directly or by those who do it online and then run away,” he told a press conference. “This is not a protest, it is an organized and violent thug that has no place on our streets or online.”
Such was the extent of the damage to communities and the number of injuries to police officers that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, said some of those arrested could face terrorism charges.
Speaking to the BBC, Parkinson said: “Where you have organized groups that are planning activities to promote an ideology and plan a really serious disorder, yes, we will consider terrorism offences.
Yes, we are willing to look at terrorism offences, and I am aware of at least one case where that happens.
Sources who spoke to Arab News did not dispute the claims that the violence was anything more than “violent harassment.” However, they cautioned against neglecting the need to examine fundamental social issues.
One of the sources, who works in education and asked not to be named, said the disorder followed an election campaign that raised legitimate concerns by trying to blame the country's ills on the negative effects of mass immigration. has paid attention.
“Mix that with misinformation about the identity of the girls' killers that catalyzed the riots, and what you have is the chickens coming home to roost,” the source said.
An attack on a children's dance and yoga workshop at a community center in Southport, north Liverpool, on July 29 killed three girls and injured 10 others – eight of them children – by a 17-year-old. became.
Because of the suspect's age, police were legally required to withhold his identity, inadvertently creating a vacuum that was quickly filled with misinformation on social media claiming the suspect was a Muslim who had entered the country illegally. created
The spread of misinformation using online influencers who themselves regularly post anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment to bolster a political agenda didn't help.
Zoheer Al Shimaleh, head of research at Valent Projects, a UK-based firm that uses artificial intelligence to combat disinformation, said identifying the root causes of riots can be difficult because there is a combination of deliberate manipulation by those looking for it. has it. Anti-immigration agenda and extensive bot activity.
Referring to a right-wing political party that has made achievements in this field, Al-Shimaleh told Arab News: Since August 3, accounts and networks related to Reform UK have been active on X and Facebook, claiming two-stage police. are The recent general election
They throw a lot of resources into this to test some lines and narratives and see what sticks, but basically it shows that the police are letting Muslim thugs riot while they are “white patriots”. They target those who are simply angry about the “situation”. their nation.”
The two-stage policing proposals focused on “soft management” by police of the “left-wing, pro-Palestinian” marches that have been held in London every week since October 7 and the earlier Black Lives Matter protests.
On the basis of the disorder scale alone, the comparison is poor. A recent pro-Palestinian march of 10,000 resulted in the injury of three police officers. By contrast, around 750 people rioted in Rotherham on Sunday, injuring at least 12 officers.
Opposition to the riots is almost universal across all sectors of the population, with Reform UK voters the only group showing significant levels of support, at 21 per cent, according to YouGov polling data.
Even this is a clear minority, with three-quarters of Reform voters (76%) opposed to the riots. Support among other voters is much lower – just 9% of Conservatives, 3% of Labor voters and 1% of Lib Dems favor the deregulation.
There is, however, sympathy with ideas that fuel riots and far-right groups, such as the English Defense League, which are believed to be organizing violence.
Indeed, legal immigration to the UK has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, while illegal entry through the English Channel has continued despite the previous government's pledge to “stop the boats”.
The latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics on immigration show that in 2023, around 1.2 million people will have immigrated to the UK, while 532,000 have left, leaving a net migration figure of 685,000.
Around 29,000 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats in 2023, down from 46,000 in 2022, although the overall number of small boat arrivals has increased significantly since 2018.
According to the Oxford University Migration Observatory, the share of foreign-born workers in the UK has risen steadily over the past two decades, rising from 9% of the workforce in the first quarter of 2004 (2.6 million) to 21%. Is. percent in the first quarter of 2024 (6.8 million).
It found that immigrant men are more likely to be employed than UK-born men, but among women, immigrants are less likely to be employed.
Although asylum seekers are not allowed to work, and do not receive housing or substantial welfare payments while their claims are being processed, a section of the UK population fears that the needs of the new arrivals, while racial, outweigh their needs. The composition of their communities changes around them.
However, voter behavior in the recent UK general election suggests that immigration is not a priority for most people. “A much better (though still imperfect) indicator is national elections,” wrote right-wing sociologist and commentator Noah Carle in a recent article for Aporia magazine.
“Britain just held one a few weeks ago and the results provide little basis for saying 'the British have had enough of mass immigration'.” 56% of whites voted for left-wing or progressive parties, and another 26% voted for the Conservatives (the de facto pro-immigration party). Only 16% supported the reform.
In fact, the share of whites supporting leftist or progressive parties has increased since 2019.
Now, you might argue that things have changed since the election, because of the riots in Leeds, the stabbing in Southport and other incidents. But it hasn't really changed.
Before the recent election, white British people had already been exposed to Islamist terrorism, barber gangs, BLM riots, the “decolonization” movement, accusations of “white privilege” and more. Party.
Although polls show most Britons want a cut in immigration, they appear to care more about issues such as the cost of living, housing and the NHS.
So many commentators have placed much of the blame on social media platforms that act as a catalyst for violence, while rioters fueled by misinformation seek to emulate the disorder seen elsewhere in the country and fed into their smartphones. .
However, some of the blame may lie with the pervasive political discourse in Britain today.
Paul Reilly, senior lecturer in communication, media and democracy at the University of Glasgow, said one of the main reasons may be the lack of accountability for social media platforms in allowing misinformation to spread. But he also mentioned another group.
“I believe political commentators, influencers and politicians have played a key role in this by creating a toxic political discourse around immigration,” Reilly told Arab News.
Social media platforms can do better at removing hate speech and misinformation. But they are not treated as publishers and are not responsible for the content they host. I expect the discussion of temporarily shutting down online platforms during civil unrest as a viable policy.
However, Riley has also challenged Southport MP Patrick Hurley's claim that the violence was solely due to “lies and propaganda” spread on social media.
Instead, citing his research into the role of social media in political unrest in Northern Ireland, he says that while online platforms are used to share rumors and misinformation, which has fueled tensions, such online activity tends to It is “following instead of preceding the riots”.
“If political leaders are serious about avoiding more violence, they need to start by moderating their language,” he said.
However, he added, “It is expedient for politicians to blame online platforms rather than acknowledge their role in producing toxic political discourse around asylum seekers and immigration.”
A legal researcher, who did not want to be named, told Arab News that the riots are a sign of the failure to address wealth disparities, which has created an environment for disinformation to spread.
“It's just a repeat of what we've seen time and time again with public service outages. Amid the government's lack of accountability, people will look for the culprit.”
“If there's a spark, those who come out to clean up after the rioters seem to represent a much larger cross-section of affected communities, suggesting that for a government that cares, there's still a bargain for a better tomorrow.”
