ON TUESDAY LAST week, grieving residents in the English seaside town of Southport gathered for a vigil to mourn three young girls who were killed in a horrific stabbing attack the previous afternoon. Eight other children and two adults had been taken to hospital.
Outside the local arts centre, children blew bubbles and wrote messages in chalk on the pavement as mourners came with flowers and balloons.
Not long after the vigil concluded, a mob of racist agitators descended on the local mosque, spurred by disinformation spread online that led people to believe the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker.
The crowd began hurling bricks and other projectiles at the mosque building and the scene soon became one of violent chaos as police attempted to intervene. More than 50 police officers were injured.
Local police said that many of those who came to attack the mosque were not actually from Southport, having come to the town with the express intention of causing mayhem and victimising minorities.
The 17-year-old suspect in the stabbing, Axel Muganwa Rudakubana from Banks, Lancashire, has since been charged with three counts of murder and ten counts of attempted murder. The eight children who had been in hospital have now all been discharged.
Since the events in Southport, there has been a series of attacks aimed at people of the Muslim faith, their businesses and places of worship, as well as looting and further attacks on police across England and in Northern Ireland.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with police chiefs in the aftermath and held a press conference on Thursday, in which he condemned the violent scenes in Southport – and those that followed in London and Hartlepool – as “far-right thuggery”, promising that those who took part would regret doing so.
The Prime Minister said he would like to see orders against individuals used in a similar way to those found guilty of hooliganism at football matches, which could restrict offenders’ movements.
This is because, as Starmer said, the far right in the UK is coordinated and its adherents move from place to place, inserting themselves into communities after tragic events like the one in Southport, much like their counterparts in Ireland do.
However, since then the number of racist attacks and riots has only increased and Starmer is due to hold an emergency meeting this evening.
There have been major far-right mobilisations in Sunderland, Belfast, Rotherham, Plymouth, Middlesbrough, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Hull and elsewhere.
On Thursday, London police made more than 100 arrests at a large demonstration under the banner “Enough is Enough”. A number of police suffered minor injuries.
On the same night in Hartlepool, a police car was set on fire as officers came under attack in similar scenes to those in London.
On the streets of Belfast on Friday, far-right agitators from the Republic joined loyalists in a joint march where both tricolours and union jacks were waving side by side in a bizarre demonstration.
A number of businesses were burnt out that night, with Muslim-owned properties targeted in particular. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has said today that there were loyalist paramilitaries involved in the violence over the weekend.
Today, a man is in a serious condition after reportedly being “stamped” on the head by attackers during more racist violence in Belfast last night.
The PSNI said they are treating the assault as a hate crime and said the man, aged in his 50s, was taken to hospital after the attack.
On Sunday evening, a mob gathered outside a hotel in Rotherham which was housing some asylum seekers. They attempted to break into the building and set it on fire.
Police were outnumbered and faced a barrage of wooden planks and rocks thrown by the crowd but they managed to keep those inside the hotel safe for the most part.
Ten police officers were injured during the attack on the Holiday Inn Express, with one officer being knocked out and taken to hospital with a concussion.
As of this morning, close to 400 people had been arrested in connection with the riots, a number UK police have said they expect will rise as investigations continue.
Posts circulating on social media have indicated that far-right groups plan to continue their attacks and target institutions related to immigration this week.
Muslim community leaders have urged people to show restraint in the face of all the far-right aggression, after several hundred Muslim men gathered in Birmingham when rumours of an English Defence League attack had spread online.
A number of countries, including Nigeria, Malaysia, Kenya, the UAE and Indonesia have warned their citizens in the UK to avoid large gatherings because of the riots and attacks against people of colour.
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