A Year On From The Southport Riots, Is The UK Really On The Edge Of Mass Civil Disobedience?

Riot police officers push back anti-migration protesters outside the Holiday Inn Express Hotel which is housing asylum seekers on August 4, 2024.Tuesday marks exactly one year since three little girls were murdered in Southport in a horrifying incident which stunned the country.Axel Rudakubana, 18, has since been jailed for a minimum of 52 years over his “sadistic” violence, which also left 10 others seriously wounded.To make matters worse, the atrocious event also morphed into something else last summer.Riots soon spread across the country, as misinformation fuelled anti-immigration sentiment. Many demonstrators falsely believed the culprit was an asylum seeker, even though he was actually born and raised in the UK.It was Keir Starmer’s first test as the new prime minister. He promised to crack down on the far-right thuggery, batted away tech magnate Elon Musk’s accusations that the UK had “two-tier policing” and supposedly favoured people of colour.When the violent riots fizzled out amid high rates of arrest and counter-protests, many Brits (43%) responded pretty positively.But a year later, there are fresh fears it could all happen again.As Southport holds a three-minute silence and lowers flags on public buildings in tribute to those who died, police intelligence officers are attentively watching social media, wary of any attempts to revive the disorder of 2024.And violence and intimidation broke out in Epping earlier this month as protesters gathered around a hotel suspected to be housing asylum seekers.Some of the demonstrators were peaceful but others attacked the Bell Hotel’s employees and police officers.Then over the weekend, anti-migrant demonstrations were held at hotels in Wolverhampton, east London, Norwich, Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Southampton and Nottinghamshire.And it all began because police supposedly arrested an asylum seeker – Habush Kebatu from Ethiopia – on charges linked to sexual offences in Epping.He has denied all offences.So, are we seeing a repeat of last year?Protesters wrapped in the St George flag of England stand in front of a line of riot police as protesters march into the town centre of Epping, northest of London, on July 20, 2025 from a demonstration outside The Bell Hotel, believed to be housing asylum seekers after police charged an asylum-seeker with sexual offences earlier this month.Nigel Farage defended the initial protests in Epping, blaming the small group of counter-demonstrators from Stand Up to Racism who attracted some ire from protesters.But the Reform UK leader also claimed: “I don’t think anybody in London even understands just how close we are to civil disobedience on a vast scale in this country and I regret saying that.”“Of course there were some bad eggs that turned up in Epping. There were the usual far-right thugs, but equally what about Antifa?”Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner then told colleagues last week that immigration was one of the driving forces of social tension in British society right now, and – unusually for British politics – Tory leader Kemi Badenoch seemed to agree.It is clear that the effects from last year continue to hang over the public consciousness.A new report from the charity People’s Health Trust has recently warned 2024′s riots had a “devastating long-term impact on the mental and physical health of affected communities”.And the latest British Social Attitudes survey found only 12% of the public trust the government to put the country first, an all-time low.Anti-immigration violence continues to break out sporadically, too: earlier this month, Northern Ireland police in the County Tyrone village of Moygashel started to investigate the burning of life-sized models of refugees in a boat as a hate crime.But Nina Navid, campaign manager for racial justice at Amnesty International UK said it was particularly important that politicians did not “stir up” tensions right now.She told HuffPost UK: “We are deeply concerned by any suggestion that the UK is on the brink of ‘civil disobedience’ or unrest.“Nigel Farage has seemingly failed to apply any of the learning lessons from last year’s racist riots to himself.“Just [last week] in a flagship speech on law and order, Nigel Farage pledged to ‘halve crime in five years’ yet he continues to demonstrate unwillingness and double standards when it comes to violence or crime targeting asylum seekers in Epping – or elsewhere.” Navid continued: “These claims fit a familiar pattern: politicians and social media pundits stirring up tensions within communities, then presenting themselves as the solution.“After the tragic murders in Southport last year, Farage himself claimed that there was ‘more to this than we’re being told’, encouraging the misinformation that could fuel racist violence across the country.“If serious politicians want to tackle the underlying strains that lead to civil disorder, they should start by avoiding de-humanising and divisive rhetoric.”The prime minister’s spokesperson also sought to play down concerns about future protests, telling reporters: “We will be working closely across the country with local areas, including councils, the wider community, local police, to identify any hotels where there needs to be specific arrangements.“But we want to bring asylum hotel use down across the board and that’s been the focus since we came into office.”He also pointed out that asylum seekers and hotel use was down by 6,000 in the first three months of this year, and the government continues to return people.While only time will tell whether that’s enough to deter more frustrated Brits from taking action this summer, perhaps it’s worth focusing on the way Southport united in the wake of the tragedy, rather than what the far-right are thinking.As Southport MP Patrick Hurley remarked, after the stabbings, the whole community started to support one another in an “overwhelming tidal wave of love given to the people of the town”.He added: “If you come in to cause trouble, we don’t want you.”Related...Keir Starmer Calls For St George's Flag To Be 'Reclaimed' From Southport RiotersKemi Badenoch Says No Further Evidence Needed To Support 'Integration' Theory About Southport KillerSenior Minister Responds To Calls For Law Reform After Southport Killer Sentencing

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