Warning: this blog contains distressing videos and imagery.
It has been three months since this summer’s race riots; the most widespread outbreak of far-right violence in the post-war period. Yet despite its significance, already this shocking episode has almost vanished from news coverage.
In late July and early August, mobs across the country descended on sites of temporary migrant accommodation – some of which were subjected to vandalism and attempted arson – and fought with police, chanted racist slogans, targeted mosques and engaged in bouts of mindless destruction and looting.
The reaction from the government was forceful and swift. At the time of writing, at least 1,280 individuals have been arrested, at least 800 charged and several hundred already convicted and serving sentences. The overwhelming majority of sentences so far (with one or two notable exceptions) have been between one and three years, generally for charges relating to violent disorder.
YouGov polling in the immediate aftermath of the riots was damning. The results suggested that “opposition to the riots [was] near-universal across every part of the public”, highlighting the widespread contempt for the far-right thuggery which upturned many towns around the country.
As a response, there have been concerted efforts to muddy the waters around the riots in the intervening months.
Firstly, far-right activists and their outriders in sections of the right wing media have tried to to reframe the violence as outpourings of “legitimate anger”. These were not people inspired by far-right ideology, so this narrative goes, but “concerned patriots” angered by the horrific Southport attack. This has been particularly brazen, given the manner in which mobilisations moved swiftly from anger at the attack to targeting both Muslims and immigration more broadly.
There has also been an attempt to minimise the severity of the crimes for which rioters, and especially the much smaller number of online far-right agitators, have been convicted. This misrepresents the reasons for which people were incarcerated, enabling claims of draconian state overreach and “two tier policing”..
Taken together, these are attempts to downplay and explain away the violence and, to some extent, legitimise rioting and violence. This is not only disingenuous, but dangerous.
Also noteworthy is the far right’s use of rioter Peter Lynch’s tragic death as both a martyr and a symbol of Starmer’s “tyrannical” leadership. Lynch, who received two years eight months for violent disorder for his part in the Rotherham Holiday Inn riot, is believed to have sadly taken his own life in prison.
Claims of victimisation at the hands of “two tier policing” have been a major preoccupation of the British far right over the preceding year, but have accelerated significantly since the riots. Conceptually, this theory advances a fiction that far-right activists are treated more severely by the police than those from left/progressive and minority groups.
Innumerable examples demonstrate this to be a falsehood. Whether it be the five Just Stop Oil activists who recently received long prison sentences for planning a non-violent action during an online meeting, the Bristol “Kill the Bill” rioter who received a sentence of 14 years or the student jailed for six months for stealing a £3.50 bottle of water during the 2011 London riots, the truth is different to the far right’s framing.
Indeed, the idea that the far right (and far-right men in particular) face disproportionate police treatment crumbles completely when set alongside the well-documented systemic biases that have been shown to exist within British policing.
Not only do these biases feed into tactics such as the much-criticised “stop and search” practices – widely considered to have been constructed upon a blunt use of racial profiling – but also manifest in institutional misogyny and homophobia.
Seeing the increasing acceptance of the notion of police bias among the public, the far right have tried to weaponise it for their own ends. The far right’s complaints of “two tier policing” is a victimhood narrative constructed upon sand. “Two tier policing” does indeed exist, the far right, however, is not the recipient of it.
Going further still, many on the far right have sought to blame Keir Starmer for the riots. In doing so, they have argued that Starmer’s strong criminal justice response to the rioters, and his calling them far right, drove them to instigate more carnage. We should view this as an attempt to hold the country hostage; implying that the only solution to this and any potential future far-right rioting must be nothing less than total capitulation to violent, criminal and destructive forces.
So whilst the far right interprets the imprisonment of rioters for violent disorder as examples of unjust and political persecution, the truth is more nuanced. In reality, the history of British social unrest has shown repeatedly that the state takes a dim view of anyone engaging in disorder that threatens the rule of law. In such scenarios, the state always acts swiftly and forcefully. If far-right activists are searching for people to blame for the prison sentences, they should begin by looking closer to home.
With the “two tier policing” narrative as a foundation, far-right activists and influencers have sought to distort public understanding of why people were incarcerated during the riots and in the subsequent weeks.
Ignoring the widespread violence and carnage, the far right have instead focused on the small group of individuals arrested and/or convicted for online offences. In doing so, they have tried to convey a perception of mass incarceration for the crime of, in their terms, “hurty words”. This has been done to distract from the violence and destruction carried out on behalf of their cause, as well as seeking to portray those imprisoned for such crimes as victims of an authoritarian state.
Once again, the reality is very different.
Research suggests that as of mid-September, fewer than 40 arrests have been made and/or charges handed down relating to online activity – less than 4% of the total.
The majority of these relate to serious offences, such as incitement, threats to hurt or kill and stirring up racial hatred. Online hate does not sit within a vacuum; time and again it has been shown to feed into offline harm. Given the role social media played in organising and encouraging activity during the riots, it is inconceivable that investigations would not take place into the most serious instances.
Indeed, many such cases are chilling. One featured a 45-year old man who, in the aftermath of the horrific scenes in Rotherham, called for a further hotel to be set alight. Another was a Cheshire woman who called for a mosque to be blown up “with adults inside”. Similarly, a man from Wales wrote “burn them all down with the bastards inside” alongside a picture of a mosque.
These cases must not be divorced from the broader discussion about Muslims and asylum seekers in Britain. Both the rioters and online supporters have been emboldened by the existing climate of prejudice that has been fostered for years by elements of our media and supposedly mainstream politicians.
The fascist organisation, Patriotic Alternative (PA), has also got in on the act by trying to instil a grievance narrative about incarcerated rioters across the right more broadly.
For example, PA has latched onto the case of Lewis Carver, declaring him a “political prisoner” and claiming to raise money for his family.
In court, Carver was said to have played a “prominent role” in the violence in Hull (which saw some of the worst scenes of rioting nationally), and left a police officer with facial injuries.
Arguably the most significant feature of the post-riots period, however, has been the attempt at reframing the riots as outpourings of “legitimate anger”, repositioning rioters as “concerned citizens” in the process.
This was a predictable and immediate response to the widespread public backlash to the riots, as well as to Starmer’s statements about the far-right leanings of those involved. For example, radical right commentator Matthew Goodwin wrote “what did you expect?” in an inflammatory essay on his Substack the day after the initial Southport riot.
Another of the many who have tried to explain away the violence is Reform UK’s Ben Habib. On GB News last month, Habib defended those who had taken to the streets, saying: “There can be no excuse for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom getting up on television, speaking to the nation, defining these people as far-right, castigating them”. Similarly, in the second week of August, Reform MP, Lee Anderson, said: “These are not far-right thugs, they’re just young idiots who got carried away”.
About this we should be unequivocal. Targeting mosques for damage, trying to burn people alive in migrant hotels, chanting racist slogans, inciting racial hatred online – anyone involved in these disgraceful activities has rightly earned themselves the “far right” tag and there ought to be very little debate about that.
As it happens, we have written extensively about the many individuals drawn from across the organised British far right who have been convicted for their actions during the riots. These are figures from long-standing anti-migrant campaigns and established far-right organisations, and does not include the plenty of others who attended but avoided arrest.
In addition, the “post-organisational” nature of the modern British far right is also intrinsically tied to the riots. The “post-organisational far right” is a product of social media, allowing people to operate outside of standard far-right organisations and work towards shared political objectives, influenced by far-right “influencers” such as Tommy Robinson. This dynamic meant that the majority of the protests were planned independently of any formal organisation, generally by local people, whilst many attendees remained attuned to the decentralised far-right online networks.
As we wrote recently:
“The shared slogans, language and iconography across a diverse array of events owes to the fact that their organisers and attendees were often active in overlapping online spaces.”
And crucially:
“You do not have to be part of a far-right organisation to be a far-right activist. Failing to understand this is part of the reason that many felt uneasy or simply refused to correctly label the rioters as ‘far right’.”
The summer’s race riots were a shocking reminder of the violent potential of this country’s far-right movement.
Almost as disquieting has been the attempt to underplay what took place during that period. This has been done with the clear intention of shifting public perception on what sort of activity is legitimate, and to downplay the reprehensible destruction and criminality involved.
This increases the likelihood of further disorder in the future. Such attempts must be challenged at every turn, and the true picture of what happened must be repeated to emphasise the scale of the threat at hand.
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