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A week of riots, with violence against the police, threats to Muslims, burning of vehicles and looting (Greggs, Shoezone, Sainsbury’s Local) broke out in Liverpool, Sunderland, London, Hartlepool, Manchester, Hull, Aldershot, Stoke-on-Trent, Bristol, Bolton, Tamworth, Portsmouth, Weymouth, Leeds, Rotherham, Middlesbrough, Nottingham, Blackpool, Plymouth and Belfast. The Northern Ireland Assembly was recalled. Rioters attacked hotels where asylum-seekers were living. They threw fencing, beer kegs, glass bottles and furniture at police, wounding scores. Activity was coordinated on social media.
The anger of most rioters was directed against Muslims in general and hotels housing asylum-seekers. ‘Save our children’ was one of the chants. This in part followed a misapprehension about the person arrested after fatal stabbings in Southport last week. A judge at Liverpool Crown Court ruled that the name of the 17-year-old charged with murder in Southport, Axel Rudakubana, should be made public. His parents are from Rwanda, and he is not Muslim. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said in a television broadcast on Sunday: ‘I won’t shy away from calling it what it is – far-right thuggery.’ After a meeting of Cobra he said ministers and police chiefs had agreed to form a ‘standing army’ of specialist officers to deal with incidents. At Yardley in Birmingham a mob of young men of Asian background attacked the Clumsy Swan pub. Elon Musk mocked Sir Keir as ‘#TwoTierKeir’ for policing different groups differently. Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, when asked by a Sky News journalist in Whitehall about two-tier policing, knocked his microphone to the ground. Malaysia and Nigeria issued warnings to travellers to Britain.
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