On Tuesday night, the Southport community experienced first hand the dangerous consequences of far-right antagonism. What should have been an evening mourning the losses of Monday’s tragic attack became a display of violence and rioting, with protesters attacking police with fireworks and rocks, chanting Islamophobic slogans and targeting a mosque.
Now, violence has broken out across London, Hartlepool and Aldershot, with further demonstrations planned into the weekend.
Whilst this escalation of violence has been shocking, it is part of a wider, worrying pattern of volatile community tensions. Less than two weeks after disorder in Harehills, Leeds was racistly mischaracterized by Nigel Farage MP as the “politics of the subcontinent”, we are again seeing far-right actors hijacking emotive events to peddle their own divisive agenda.
Far-right figures like Farage, Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate continue to stoke the flames of hate against Muslims and migrants, who once again find themselves as scapegoats in the centre of a disinformation storm.
Far-right rhetoric has become normalised within the political and media mainstream.
Our research shows support for prevailing far-right narratives that multiculturalism has not only ‘failed’, but is a direct threat to a British way of life.
Our polling from December 2023 showed a 6% increase in scepticism to multiculturalism over the previous year. This trend has not only continued but escalated; today, there is even more consensus that multiculturalism isn’t working, up 12% in the last 6 months. Alongside this, there is heightened awareness of increasing tensions between different ethnic groups in the UK, from 53% in December 2023 to 60% in June 2024.
Communities are paying the price as this rhetoric fuels prejudice, and eventually violence.
This not only compromises the safety of Muslims and other minority groups, but all communities across the country. It is the far right who whip up hate, but it is the people they exploit who are left to pick up the pieces once tensions boil over into violence.
It is sadly clear that we are far from achieving peaceful coexistence across all communities in the UK. Regardless of whether it is fear, hatred, ignorance or desperation, these emotions can be exploited by the far right to create dangerous environments and events.
We have seen people in Southport and beyond come together to condemn this violence and stand in solidarity with their neighbours. However, they must not be left to deal with this alone.
The Government urgently needs a plan to build community cohesion.
This must include strategies for preventing and healing community flare ups like we have seen in Southport, but also proactively building up community resilience to hate.
This strategy should include:
After the shocking attack in Southport on Monday and the far-right riots that followed, it’s clear that communities across the UK need our support.
Please join us to urge MPs to prioritise community cohesion and support towns like Southport.
We have drafted an email that you can send to your MP.
