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Fresh riots broke out in several towns and cities across Britain on Sunday afternoon after dozens of people were arrested during clashes with police on Saturday.
The protests are Britain’s most widespread outbreak of far-right violence in years and pose the first major test for the Labour government that came to power last month after 14 years in opposition.
The unrest has been fuelled by a surge in Islamophobic and anti-immigrant misinformation spread on social media since a mass stabbing attack in Southport, near Liverpool, earlier this week.
Far-right influencers falsely blamed Islamists for the attack, which left three girls dead and eight children injured, and used the incident to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment.
A far-right protest turned violent in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham on Sunday, when masked protesters stormed into a hotel because they believed it was being used to house refugees.
The protests, which had begun hours earlier, intensified when crowds began hurling debris and bottles at police. Footage posted online showed trash cans being burned outside the hotel and protesters vandalizing and breaking into the building.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the protesters had “deliberately” set the fires “knowingly knowing that people were inside the buildings” and called on police to take “the strongest action against those responsible”.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the events that took place across England this week were not protests but “violent assaults” and that those who took part would face the “full enforcement of the law”.
“This is not a protest, it is an act of organised violence and it has no place in the streets or online,” he said.
Cooper announced that mosques across the country would be provided with new emergency security measures, allowing police, local authorities and mosques to call on security to be deployed quickly if unrest breaks out.
In Bolton, Greater Manchester, police issued dispersal orders on Sunday afternoon after hundreds of protesters and counter-protesters gathered in Town Hall Square.
As tensions escalated, missiles were thrown and protests spread to the city centre, with police trying to separate the two sides as they faced off against each other.
Around 300 protesters marched through Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, on Sunday afternoon, breaking through a police line in the city centre, hurling objects including slate boards and plastic bottles, and damaging cars, police vehicles and buildings.
Ahead of the rally, calls for large-scale riots had been circulating online, and Cleveland police said they were responding to unrest in the city and had made “several arrests.”
Violent gatherings took place in several towns and cities on Saturday, including Bristol, Blackpool, Hull and Liverpool, with more than 100 people arrested, local police said.
Mr Starmer condemned attacks on Muslims and other minority communities, including on mosques, and said there had been “random violence” including attacks on police and people making Nazi salutes.
He added: “This violent mob does not represent our country and we will bring them to justice.”
Starmer said officials had been meeting throughout the weekend to ensure they had the support and arrangements needed to deal with the unrest and speed up the process of arrests, prosecutions and convictions.
Mr Starmer said he had led the prosecution of thousands of people involved in the Crown Prosecution Service after the 2011 riots, when he was Director of Public Prosecutions.
Judges on Sunday were considering keeping the courthouse open overnight to clear a backlog of cases, as was done during the 2011 riots.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said it was deploying 4,000 extra officers across the country to tackle further outbreaks of violence.
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard called the incident in Rotherham a “brutal assault on one of the most vulnerable people in society”.
Former Chancellor and Opposition Leader Rishi Sunak said the violence had nothing to do with the Southport tragedy: “This was violent and criminal behaviour and has no place in our society…”[those involved]”I must face the full force of the law,” he posted on X.
Shadow home secretary James Cleverley said there was no “justification or basis” for the violence.
Cartography: Steven Bernard
