UK: MRG condemns race riots and urges broad accountability
In recent days, racially motivated rioting has erupted across the United Kingdom. Hundreds of far-right supporters, motivated by anti-migrant sentiment, Islamophobia and racism towards people of colour, have perpetrated the violence. The riots were catalysed by the tragic stabbing of children in Southport on 29 July 2024 and further fuelled by the rapid spread of fake news falsely identifying the attacker as a Muslim migrant.
Minority Rights Group (MRG) gravely condemns this horrifying violence, which must be called what it is, racism and Islamophobia – not protest. MRG warns that culpability extends far beyond the direct perpetrators. Rather, the events of the last week are the result of a political class (across parties) that has failed in its duty to protect citizens from right-wing extremism, and which has for years along with the media pandered to the far-right via the normalization and legitimization of Islamophobia, anti-migrant sentiment, and consequently racism more broadly, for the purposes of electoral and financial gain.
Though Muslims and migrants have been particularly targeted, the attacks have extended beyond these communities to Black people, South Asians and East and Southeast Asians. A network of decentralized far-right, fascist, white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, spaces and individuals is behind the attacks. Urgent steps must be taken to ensure the safety of migrants, Muslims, and people of colour more broadly in the immediate term. Long-term, multilateral interventions are desperately required beyond the immediate prosecution of perpetrators, including those stirring up hate from a distance. At the same time, MRG warns against the co-option of these riots as a means to legitimise recent extensions of police powers or anti-protest legislation in the UK, or to call for yet further powers, since it is minorities and proponents of progressive causes who are disproportionately impacted by this draconian legislation.
The factors behind this eruption of hatred long predate the Southport attack. ‘Prevent’, the UK counter-terrorism strategy, has been widely criticized as institutionally Islamophobic. It must urgently be overhauled to address this and to ensure that it places due emphasis on the far-right ideologies behind these attacks and those who hold them, taking into account the decentralized, digital nature of the networks fomenting hatred.
The UK government must also radically overhaul immigration and asylum policy to make it fair, compassionate and in line with international human rights standards, including decent housing within the community. At the same time, it must clamp down on hateful reportage and misinformation both online and offline via strong regulation of traditional and social media. Strategies must be put in place to foster media literacy and critical thinking skills commensurate with the digital age. Britain’s media landscape is tightly controlled by a handful of individuals and corporations, with right-wing outlets at an advantage. Lack of media pluralism is a major issue; stronger regulation is desperately needed to disarm this threat to democracy.
Featured image: A protester holds a placard during a Stand Up To Racism unity rally against anti-immigration activists in Manchester, United Kingdom. Credit: Andy Barton/Sipa US/Alamy Live News.
