How False Claims Sparked Anti-Muslim, Anti-Migrant Riots in Britain

British authorities are under increasing pressure to end the worst riots in Britain for 13 years, sparked by false claims about a stabbing that killed three girls at a dance school in Southport last week.

Rioters also threw stones, attacked police, burned and looted shops, and smashed windows on cars and homes. They chanted anti-Islam and anti-migrant slogans and targeted mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers in several cities last weekend.

The Financial Times reported that more than 100 officers were injured, some seriously, in the violence last week.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said those involved in violent disorder would pay the price and that violence and criminal disorder had no place on Britain’s streets.

More than 378 people were arrested after clashes erupted in several cities, including Liverpool, Manchester, Southport, Bristol, Blackpool, and Hull, as well as Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Far-right Violence

The UK government announced that 6,000 specialist police officers were put on standby to deal with the riots, led by the far-right, which erupted after three girls were stabbed to death at a dance class in Southport, northwest England, and five other children were seriously injured.

It was rumored at the time that the perpetrator was a Muslim refugee who came to the country last year, but this was quickly revealed to be a lie after British police announced that the suspect was a Christian young man named Axel Rudakubana, 17 years old, who was born in Wales.

Riots and clashes broke out between police and anti-migrant protesters, fueled by calls for demonstrations promoted by accounts affiliated with far-right activists.

Anti-racism group ‘Hope Not Hate’ has tracked more than 30 events planned for last weekend.

Many were advertised on far-right social media as ‘enough is enough’ anti-immigration rallies, while anti-fascist groups organized counter-protests.

Far-right rioters sometimes clashed with anti-racism protesters across Britain, from Liverpool and Hull to Belfast and Leeds and Sunderland to Bristol.

Muslim imams have expressed concern about the rise in incitement against them, with a mosque in Sunderland and another in Southport attacked during clashes between police and agitators.

Shaukat Warraich, director of the company Mosque Security, which provides protection services to Islamic places of worship, said he had received inquiries from more than 100 mosques seeking help and advice.

The Home Office has offered mosques greater protection to quickly address the risk of further attacks on places of worship.

In turn, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to impose swift criminal penalties on those involved in the riots and has shown great resolve in recent days in confronting what he has described as far-right thuggery.

Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said the Muslim community was deeply concerned, particularly with these planned gatherings across the UK specifically targeting mosques.

The UK organisation ‘Tell Mama’ said that Muslims in Britain had become terrified by the increase in far-right activity since last week, which is directly linked to a significant increase in hate crimes against Muslims.

The monitoring group that tracks complaints of hate crimes against Muslims said that a total of 10 mosques had faced attacks or threats, including Muslim places of worship in Southport, Liverpool, and Hartlepool.

The violence is the worst in Britain since the summer of 2011, when widespread rioting erupted after the police killing of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old black British man, in north London.

Deeply Concerned

The unrest across Britain, which has put the country's Muslim community on the line and seen hundreds of arrests, represents the biggest challenge facing PM Keir Starmer a month after taking office following his Labour Party's landslide victory over the Conservatives.

Labour politicians have accused Nigel Farage, leader of the UK's Reform Party, of stirring up recent unrest.

In last month’s election, the anti-immigration Reform Party won more than 14% of the vote, one of the highest percentages for a far-right British party.

Police, however, blamed the chaos on organizations linked to the anti-Islam English Defence League (EDL), a far-right racist movement founded 15 years ago by Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, and his partner Paul Ray.

Paul Ray worked for Israeli intelligence, infiltrating and spying on the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and the information he gathered was passed on to multiple intelligence agencies.

In a 2016 article, Robinson said: “I am not on the far right, I am just against Islam. I think it is a backward, fascist religion.”

He also considered that the refugee crisis is nothing more than ‘an Islamic invasion of Europe’ and is not related to asylum.

Despite Robinson's racist, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim content being restricted and his accounts previously deleted from social media platforms, EDL has a strong presence on social media.

Observers believe that the fierce far-right campaign against Muslims in Britain appears to be a reaction to the killing of the three girls in Southport, but the hidden reason is punishment by the Zionist lobby for the Muslim community in Britain for its position on the genocide in the Gaza Strip.

On the other hand, the UK government criticized American businessman Elon Musk for posting on his X platform ‘civil war is inevitable,’ in reference to the recent riots.

It is noteworthy that Musk was criticized for returning the accounts of far-right figures, last November, to his platform.

In March 2018, Robinson was permanently banned from X, then known as Twitter, before being reinstated in November last year after Musk bought the platform.

Keir Starmer’s spokesman said in a statement that social media companies had not done enough to prevent the spread of misinformation that fueled far-right violence.

Musk renewed his criticism of Starmer again in response to the prime minister’s statement on protecting Muslim communities and mosques.

Musk said: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on all communities?”

According to UK government data from 2023, no religious group has faced more hate crimes linked to faith than Britain’s Muslims. 

In the year ending March 2023, more than 4 in 10 of all recorded religious hate crime offenses were targeted against Muslims.

In turn, London-based activist Karam Marei told Al-Estiklal that “the recent escalation of violence against immigrants and Muslims in Britain is a phenomenon that did not come out of nowhere and has become widespread in the country due to internal political issues and external incitement.”

“There is also an undeniable fact in London, which is that the far-right has become present and influential in policy-making and polarizing public opinion,” he said.

He pointed out that “the far right does not move in a vacuum, and perhaps what happened in recent days in several British cities is just the beginning of a series of unrest that could develop into a dangerous social crisis.”