#southport riots

[criminalmindsgonewrong]

with everything that's happening in the UK right now, I'm just glad not to be there. with it being Liverpool, too, it's much too close to home for me.

the way the far-right racists and islamophobes are using "protect the children" as an excuse for their violence and bigotry disgusts me to my core and strips away any "British pride" I may or may not have had. this is what comes of Reform UK and people like Nigel Farage having a platform.

In the name of "protecting the children," these thugs have;

• showed up to the memorial for the three little dead girls with crates of cider and then turned it into a riot

• acid attack on a Muslim woman

• attacked black men in the street

• Torn off a woman's hijab while she carried her baby in her arms

• attacked Asian people on the bus

• beaten up an Asian cab driver

• attacked, rioted near and vandalised mosques across the cities involved

• burnt down a library and attacked the emergency workers

• thrown a missile at a fire engine that was trying to put out the fire

• set a community centre for a low-income neighbourhood on fire

this is what comes from hate. this is what the government wants. dissent among its people, so that the uneducated and unwilling among us can't see the real problem. Them.

please know that my page is and always has been a safe space for anybody that does not wish others harm. people of any race, gender, sexuality, spirituality, or any other defining characteristics, you're safe here. and to anyone affected, whether directly or from afar, I'm so sorry.

[the-desolated-quill]

I’m sorry, but this is the bare minimum and doesn’t do anything to tackle the hate speech and misinformation circulating unchecked on the platform. We don’t need a Twitter boycott. What we need is a warrant for Elon Musk’s arrest. No one should be above the law.

[llyfrenfys]

Given all the right wing violence going on in the streets, don't think it's the best idea in the world for the Prime Minister to be threatening siccing a police army on the rioters.

Just a thought

[satireinfo]

Elon Musk’s Fight with Starmer

Elon Musk vs. Keir Starmer A Billionaire, a Marxist, and the Battle for the Meme Wars By C.C. ‘Tweet-Storm’ Tremor, your free-market fabulist A Billionaire with Memes vs. A Marxist with a Smile Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and self-appointed Emperor of Free Speech, is battling Sir Keir Starmer, a British politician with a perpetual smirk and an apparent allergy to free markets. The sparks…

[ivovynckier]

Winston Churchill on religion.

[kropotkindersurprise]

July 30, 2024 - A drunken racist scumbag gets bricked in the head and the balls during a fascist riot in Southport, UK. [video]

[our-trans-punk-experience]

FAR RIGHT RIOTS

REBLOG THIS PLEASE!!

shit is bad in the UK but obviously it is immensly confusing and I know some people wouldn't want to search up the news given how volatile it is, so here is a timeline of events. warnings for talk of violence, child death, racism, police ect

Monday 29/07: mass stabbing occured in Southport at a kids dance class, three girls died on scene, several others were hospitalised. An at time unnamed 17 y old boy was arrested on suspicion, and a knife was seized. later

Tuesday 30/07: having read false news suggesting that the attacker was a muslim immigrant who had arrived on a small boat, far-right groups with links to the EDL their leader Tommy Robinson took to the internet to imply the attacker was Muslim attacked a mosque in Southport, and after being declared a public disturbance, the police showed up and started trying to disperse them. This very quickly spiralled into a riot in which 39 police were hospitalised. Also on this day, Nigel fucking Farage, leader of far-right party Reform UK tweeted a video in which asked if the police were lying that the attack was not "terror related", furthering belief that the attacker was Muslim

Wednesday 31/07: violent anti immigrant protest continued, and there were mass riots in London. The PM spoke out denouncing the far right rioters as "violent thugs who would feel the full force of the law"

Thursday 01/08 : to try and curb the spread of misinformation, the police released the identity of their suspect - Axel Rudakubana, born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents in hope that the confirmation that he is not a Muslim immigrant would stop the rioting. It has not. PM Starmer released a statement saying that these were "coordinated attacks by the far right. " and that "this is not a protest that got out of hand these are individuals bent on violence"

Friday Night 02/08: Riots started in Sunderland late at night with reports of "serious violence". Starmer announced he had a plan to tackle far right violence.

Saturday 03/08: New far right mob action started in Manchester, Bristol, Hull, Belfast, Stoke, and Nottingham. Nottingham saw the first counterprotest, and as I write this, clashes between antifacist protestors and the far right is on going. The racists are setting fire to migrant housing buildings and attacking both police and counterprotestors countrywide. Dispersal orders have been issued for every city centre and major town centre across the UK.

Sunday 04/08: a "nick em quick" approach is to be used against the rioters in a hope to remove the far right mob from the street as soon as possible. There have been over 100 arrests. There are no plans to bring in the army, say ministers. There is a current attack on a migrant housing building in Rotherham.

I will keep posting updates as this unfolds so watch this space. This is obviously terrifying, so I want you to focus on actionable points.

stop the spread of misinformation. i can cite all my sources on a different post if you would like, but know that i visited ten different news sites, and also watched all the live news coverage to make this post. if you see any new information, fact check it. if you see someone spreading misinformation anywhere, DO SOMETHING. call them out and correct them and if they don't fix it, report them.

take care of any of your friends who aren't white, or if you aren't white, consider not going anywhere alone. racists don't discriminate in their discrimination. they are violent, deranged, and several are armed.

unless you are attending a counterprotest, stay the fuck out of town and city centres!!!!

STAY SAFE OUT THERE!! always in solidarity

[bullet-proof-gay]

I read another one of their articles on it and it was borderline sympathetic to the "thugs". Started out with the same sort of headline/intro on counterprotestors and then the rest of the article was entirely focussed on the few far-right protestors that turned up and how sad they were about the immigrants :(( this poor man fought for our country* (*killed a bunch of arabs) and now he "barely recognises it" because there are immigrants :((((. They also called the protestors "anti-immigrant" throughout most of the article as opposed to calling them racist/far-right

It was so fucking infuriating the way they were simultaneously trying to go "oh look how good it was that there were counterprotests" AND "well maybe we should hear out the racists anti-inmigrants..."

this level of hypocrisy is actually unfathomable

[reasonsforhope]

"Over 11,000 small donors have managed to raise £245,000 ($270,000) to repair a library in Liverpool that was set partially ablaze during a spate of violent acts of disorder that took place in England and Belfast last week [early August, 2024].

Called Spellow Hub, the library had recently been transformed into a community space with job training and outreach activities for some of the most disadvantaged parts of Liverpool, but the rioting left the whole of the ground floor badly burned.

“I always loved to read as a child and seeing a library and community space destroyed broke my heart,” the fundraiser’s organizer, 27-year-old Alex McCormick told the Guardian. “I felt helpless and wanted to do something to help and thought fundraising would be a nice way to replace some of the books lost in the fire.”

McCormick described herself as being “overwhelmed with the response and the sense of community,” and by the time she had spoken with the British paper the fundraiser already accumulated £120,000.

An update posted on Monday announced that work had already started to restore the Spellow Hub to its former joy.

The riots were described as the worst instances of their kind in 13 years. The deaths of three young girls and the injury of 10 others when an assailant attacked a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class shook the nation.

The riots were described as the worst instances of their kind in 13 years...

However, communities have largely rallied together, including in Southport where there stabbing occurred when after a mosque was vandalized in the wake of the attack, local bricklaying companies rushed to rebuild the exterior wall in scorching temperatures."

-via August 14, 2024

[ingek73]

…

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 thrown.

In Bristol, police kept protesters and counter protesters apart before a group headed to a hotel used to house asylum seekers.

The need for urgent political intervention was stressed by the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, Lord Walney, who told the Observer that new emergency powers may be needed. “The system isn’t set up to deal with this rolling rabble-rousing being fuelled by far-right actors,” he said.

“I think home office ministers may want to look urgently at a new emergency framework – perhaps temporary in nature – that enables police to use the full powers of arrest to prevent people gathering where there is clear intent to fuel violent disorder.”

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 made clear that the right to freedom of expression and the violent scenes over recent days were “two very different things”.

Last week’s riots followed the killing of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on Monday. Axel Rudakubana, 17, from Lancashire, is accused of the attack, but false claims were spread online that the suspect was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK by boat. In the wake of these messages, far-right protesters – guided by social media – gathered in cities across the country.

A key factor in this spread of online disinformation involved Elon Musk’s decision to allow rightwing activists such as Tommy Robinson back onto his social media platform X, said Joe Mulhall, director of research at Hope not Hate, the anti-fascism organisation. “The initial disinformation and anger was being perpetrated by individuals on Twitter, for example, that have been previously deplatformed,” he said. “And now they’ve been replatformed.”

Robinson was permanently banned from the platform (then called Twitter) in March 2018, then reinstated in November last year, after Musk bought it. “We hadn’t seen any significant numbers at any demonstrations since 2018,” Mulhall added.

An example of the danger posed by the misuse of social media was revealed in Stoke-on-Trent, where police were forced to deny there had been a stabbing, countering claims made on social media. “There is growing speculation that a stabbing has taken place as a result of the disorder today. We can confirm this information is false and no stabbings have been reported to police or emergency responders, despite videos fuelling speculation on social media,” police said.

The danger of such intervention was stressed by Ben-Julian “BJ” Harrington, the National Police Chiefs Council lead for public order, who condemned social media disinformation as a cause of last week’s disorder.

He said: “We had reports today that two people had been stabbed by Muslims in Stoke – it’s just not true. There’s people out there, not even in this country, circulating and stoking up hatred, division and concerns in communities that they don’t care about, don’t know and don’t understand.”

[nic-coughlan]

what is happening in the UK with the far right protests is absolutely terrifying. all from misinformation which has fuelled an ongoing racist agenda

but on a brighter note people are coming together to fight back. peacefully.

[the-desolated-quill]

There’s talk of extraditing US citizens to face criminal charges for the role they played in inciting the riots here in the UK, and that’s good to hear, but let’s not forget the biggest instigator of them all. Elon Musk used the algorithm to spread fake news articles and conspiracy theories, directly supporting the Nazis and the far right under the guise of ‘defending free speech.’ His actions directly contravene the Online Safety Act and could also come under the legal definition of terrorism. He needs to face charges for his criminal behaviour. No amount of money should protect you from the law. Unless there are legal repercussions, he will continue to spread hate and misinformation, which could lead to further violence later down the line.

[lucky-joyous]

Absolutely sickened with the state of our country right now, I’ve never been a “proud” Brit but now I’m actually ashamed to be British. If you support the riots, the EDL, Katie Hopkins, Nigel farage etc then block me I don’t want to ever interact with you. There is a racism epidemic in our country right now and it needs to be eradicated, now.

[felucians]

UK poc, take care of your mental health as well as your safety. Check in with your friends, family and local community.

We all need each other right now

[lopsidedtreetrunks]

This is where the racists are planning on "protesting" rioting this evening. If you live in or around these areas, please stay safe indoors.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Luke Hallam at The UnPopulist:

For the past seven days, the U.K. has witnessed its worst riots in over a decade. What started off last week as a wave of protests over the horrific murder of three young girls, fueled by false claims about the identity of the attacker on social media, has metastasized into something far more profound: a deep fracturing of relations between communities that threatens to do lasting damage to Britain’s social fabric.

Origin of a Race Riot

Last Monday, a knife-wielding teenager entered through an open fire door at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the seaside town of Southport and killed three participants, all girls under the age of 10. He also injured eight more young children and two adults. It was an evil crime, the horror made all the more acute by the youth of the victims and by the fact that someone would target for such an atrocity, of all things, a joyful summer dance party. What came next should be considered a textbook example of how harmful lies can spread on social media. There are generally good reasons to be wary of finger-pointing when it comes to “fake news” and social media’s role in spreading it. But in this instance, it’s hard to overstate the extent of the hysteria that was unleashed. Mere hours after the attack, the killer was seemingly identified as Ali al-Shakati, a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived in the United Kingdom by boat, and was known to the British security services as a potential threat. Within minutes of the first social media post identifying al-Shakati, the story was picked up by a dubious news organization calling itself “Channel 3 Now.” The al-Shakati story was then parroted by Russia Today, and began appearing in a raft of viral posts on social media, including X, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Right-wing influencers with huge followings, like Andrew Tate, amplified the story, and various posts amassed thousands, often millions, of impressions.

Unrest broke out initially in Southport, Hartlepool, and London. Rioters released smoke flares and set fire to a riot van; they threw trash cans and bottles at police officers. As the unrest spread, it was the far right—an ad hoc coalition of former members of the English Defense League, supporters of notorious far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, and ordinary people swept along on social media—fueling the violence. It was common to see English flags and chants of “English till I die.” Mosques and Islamic centers were targeted in a horrific wave of xenophobic thuggery. It was, in large part, a genuine race riot—not a phrase to use lightly. In the first three days, it was well known that the suspect was only 17 years old, which means that by law they couldn’t be identified in the media. Still, in an attempt to head off the violence, the police released some limited information confirming that the alleged perpetrator of the atrocity was in fact born in the U.K. Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist-right Reform UK party and a newly-minted member of parliament, echoed a widespread fear that the establishment was conspiring with the police forces to protect an illegal migrant for fear of fueling an anti-immigrant narrative, irresponsibly declaring: “I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us.”

Finally, on Thursday afternoon, a judge took the unusual step of allowing the media to release the full identity of the alleged perpetrator despite his being a minor, noting that the suspect was only a few days away from turning 18. It turns out that Ali al-Shakati doesn’t exist. The real suspect, Axel Rudakubana, a 17-year-old born in Wales to Rwandan parents, was not a refugee. We don’t know that he’s not Muslim, nor that his motives were unrelated to some sort of Islamist ideology—though, given that only 2% of Rwanda’s population is Muslim, it seems unlikely. Of course, it hardly matters. There’s no earthly justification for violently attacking mosques, harassing the public, and setting fire to police vans.

[...]

Far-Right Xenophobia Capitalizes On Britain’s Integration Issues

There are two things to say in response to all of this: two things that may at first glance appear to be mutually exclusive, but are nevertheless both true. The first is that the right-wing polemicists have long been packaging these problems together into one overarching, catastrophist narrative of British decline. The problem is, there is no evidence that the knife crime wave has been directly fueled by asylum seekers. As bad as knife crime and other problems may be, it is also simply incorrect to assert that the country has in recent years become, in the words of one representative commentator, “a lawless country where there is no justice at all.” What’s more, right-wing catastrophism is hypocritical insofar as it has often been fueled by the very same politicians who were in government until last month, and spectacularly failed to tackle most of these problems. Indeed, it was the Conservative government that slashed the number of police officers and presided over the arrival of a record number of refugees, while failing to find a humane, durable solution for processing them. (In addition, it’s notable that even as one part of the country, Scotland, managed to successfully bring its knife crime problem under control by adopting a community-led agenda, Conservative politicians in Westminster made vacuous pronouncements about law and order that amounted to nothing for most of the country.)

The second thing to say is that there are real problems with Britain’s model of dealing with ethnic and religious diversity. Whenever there is social unrest or communal strife in France, for example, Brits and Americans like to put the blame squarely on the French model of laïcité—an imperfect approach to the separation of church and state that is often caricatured as consisting in naked animus against religious minorities. But Britain’s own highly communitarian approach—which often gives a free pass to the most radical elements within a religious community—does not seem to be faring much better, with the result that elements within some immigrant communities in Britain’s major cities have failed to properly integrate, and, as the present riots show, longstanding resentments have been left to fester.

Over the past week in the United Kingdom, far-right race riots over the UK’s immigration policies and the Southport stabbing have sprung up all over the Home Nations, especially in England.

These riots are fueled by paranoid Islamophobia, anti-immigrant xenophobia, and fake news.