In The Wake Of Racist Riots In The UK, What Is The Future Of Fighting The Far Right?

The tragic murder of three children — Alice Dasilva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe, and Bebe King,  — in the Southport stabbing attack should have been a moment of quiet reflection and unequivocal support for the grieving families who have suffered an unimaginable loss. Within less than 24 hours, their deaths had been exploited by far right groups spreading false information that the killer was a Muslim migrant in order to enact shocking levels of street violence, resulting in racist riots targeting Muslims and increasingly anyone of color. A quick snapshot of the violence is terrifying: a South Asian man was punched in the face in broad daylight as onlookers laughed and called him racial slurs, Mosques had bricks thrown at them, local resident’s houses had windows and doors smashed. A hotel housing asylum seekers in Tamworth was partially burned down, as the arsonists cheered. Nigerian student and care worker Brendan came back from his 12-hour shift to find his car had become a smoking wreckage. The trauma of it brought him to tears. 

These stories sound like tales plucked from our parents or grandparents memories, but in 2024 we find ourselves still fighting the same fight. The stark reality for people of color — especially Muslims — has been spending the last several days warning each other not to leave the house, avoiding certain areas, or reconsidering whether to wear certain religious clothing in public. Those living in communities with low levels of racial diversity have been particularly vulnerable. So how has the far right become such a material threat in the UK, and what does the future of organizing against it look like? 

The past week has shown a worrying structural collusion between the state, traditional media, social media billionaires and hate influencers working symbiotically to dismiss, downplay or completely reframe this fascist violence, in a way that only stokes the flames of division and provides fertile ground for the far right to drip dangerous ideology to the wider public. Firstly, any lingering hopes that the UK state would respond well to these clear acts of racism and Islamophobia were extinguished in the days after the attacks began. The government avoided explicitly calling it “Islamophobia” for several days, choosing to lean heavily into police state language like “thuggery” without making it clear that the violence had racist motivations. Accurate terms such as “race riots”, “domestic terrorism” or “pogroms” have been rarely used within mainstream political discourse.

Other politicians and commentariat have gone to more explicit extremes, laundering fascistic behaviour by framing it as an inevitable backlash motivated by “legitimate” concerns about immigration and normalising Islamophobia. MP Robert Jenrick who is currently standing to be the next leader of the Conservative party told Sky News that shouting “Allahu Akhbar” should be an arrestable offence. MP Nigel Farage, a leading darling of the radical right eschewed himself from the violence, but peddled a baseless far right conspiracy theory that policing is much softer on anti-fascists, BLM or ethnic minorities in general. During the general election he questioned if some young Muslims shared “British values”.    

It's of course much harder for this political framework to become legitimised if not aided and abetted by mainstream media. The fight between racists and antiracists has been described as clashes, an unsubtle implication that this is a war of equals with both sides having legitimate concerns. Muslim MP Zarah Sultana was patronized on Good Morning Britain for saying naming the attacks as Islamophobic was important. A jaw dropping clip of the BBC shows one of their reporters calling racist rioters “pro-British protests” positing antiracists by definition as “anti-British”. As Toni Morrison said “oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence”. Language matters. 

Finally, the normalization within establishment channels of Islamophobia, racism and anti-migrant sentiments has facilitated rampant disinformation online, which has been seemingly  encouraged by X owner Elon Musk. He tweeted “civil war is inevitable” in response to the race riots. Under the guise of free speech, he’s allowed Tommy Robinson, a key far right instigator back onto his platform. Misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate spread racist false information about the Southport murders, referring to migrants as “invaders”. Perversely, social media has also been the only place people of color can get some up to date information about where might be unsafe to go, with mainstream media and government failing to provide much practical guidance. Simply divesting from the poison online has been much more complex for racialized people. We are reliant on the very tools which are also putting us in danger.           

This violence has a long history, with the far right having been mainstreamed in the UK for decades, from the top. From New Labour’s harsh asylum seeker policies, to David Cameron pledging to cut immigration down to the tens of thousands, former Home Secretary Theresa May launching mobile vans telling illegal migrants to “go home”, to initiatives by the last government to send migrants to Rwanda, there is a general consensus across most of the major political parties that migration is a significant problem. Rather than challenging that xenophobic ideology, many policy makers kowtow to it, helping to shift the political dial more to the right. This against the backdrop of economic austerity for fifteen years has fed the narrative that British white people are poorer because of racialised migrants, rather than because so much wealth is accumulating with the richest at the expense of everyone else. A recent example was the MP for Tamworth who called for her constituency to “have our hotel back” from asylum seekers just days before it was set alight. There is no excuse for the violence we’ve seen, but there’s no doubt economic austerity, twinned with scapegoating migrants has created a racial tinderbox ready to explode. It’s not rational to explain a man chasing a Muslim family with a hedge trimmer as someone not radicalized by racism, but a normal citizen simply concerned about “the numbers” of people coming here.     

The threat of visceral material violence takes a huge toll on those it’s targeted at. Muslim women’s clothing has become symbolic of a “failure to integrate” or a sign of imminent danger to the public. They are not afforded the same vulnerabilities as white women; instead, they are viewed as a fair target for violent right wing men. Some Muslim women have had to rethink whether they should wear a scarf or hijab in public. Black and brown people, especially in more rural and suburban areas, are now operating with a level of hyper vigilance, having a justified paranoia that violence could descend on them at any time. Working class people of color, unable to choose to work from home were particularly vulnerable to street violence. Group chats are flooded with warnings to stay safe. A small minority of non-Muslims of color have suggested “this is not our fight”, failing to understand that the demonization of Muslims and asylum seekers is integral to white supremacy which harms all racialized communities. A threat to any of us is a threat to all of us. The question on many minds now is: “how safe am I here?”  The bonds of belonging now feel frighteningly fragile, and things could get worse. 

Amongst the devastation, there are small threads of hope. A representative from The Advocacy Academy, a UK based organization supporting young people to build their collective power and drive change in their communities and beyond, told Unbothered UK that “the history of anti-racist organizing teaches us that challenging the far right and fascism requires sustained, grassroots mobilization and the building of broad coalitions.” The benefits of looking to history for a blueprint to the challenges of today cannot be overstated. “The Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, exemplified by organizations such as the Black Panther Party and the UK’s Black Unity and Freedom Party, demonstrated that a collective struggle is necessary. Their tactics included direct action, protests, and community education. The anti-fascist movements of the 1980s, like the Anti-Nazi League, successfully countered the National Front through large-scale demonstrations and grassroots organizing”. This week we saw a glimmer of this, with large scale antiracist counter protests taking place across the UK at locations rumoured to be a target of the far right.   

It’s also important to understand what has changed, namely the digital threats from fascism and new opportunities for coalition building. “We must continue to innovate—whether by leveraging our digital platforms, forming unexpected but crucial alliances, or finding new creative ways to challenge these oppressive systems… while staying grounded in grassroots action”. This includes using social media to spread practical information, blurring faces in photos or videos when posting about counter-protests, or using more private online channels to organize. The work of building movements of solidarity can be a messy, difficult business as friction emerges between different groups with different lived experiences and ideas about how to organize; but it’s a necessary process.  

For people of color, the concept of the UK being “home” now feels much more tenuous when there are groups screaming that we don’t belong, but we aren’t going anywhere. It’s impossible to have blind faith in institutions to protect us, but faith in people is still possible. Advocacy Academy told us that  “we have seen our communities come together to clean, rebuild, and support one another.” There is a beautiful activism in those who do such vital manual labour.  “These acts of solidarity are not just symbolic; they are essential to the resilience of our movement. When our communities unite across lines of faith, ethnicity, and different backgrounds, we become a powerful force that can withstand and push back against hate.” We come from many cultures and backgrounds but this is our home. And we are prepared to fight for it.