It was not immediately clear how many people were injuredin the Rotherham hotel siege, or how far the demonstrators went inside, but photos showed confrontation between police and protesters, violence that Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned as “far-right thuggery”.
“Be it no doubt, those that have participated in this violence will face the full force of the law,” Starmer said in a speech on Sunday afternoon.
Starmer said there have also been attacks on Muslim communities and mosques. About the time of Starmer’s speech, his Government announced a new rapid-response process that mosque leaders can use to call for additional security support.
Demonstrations organised by far-right or anti-immigration groups after the stabbing in Southport, in northwest England, took place in cities across the country Son aturday and Sunday, some of which were met with counterprotests. Several cities issued orders ahead of the planned weekend protests, granting police more powers to quell “disorder and criminality”.
Officers arrested more than 100 people over the weekend – including in the cities of Hull, Liverpool and Bristol, according to the Washington Post’s tally of local police figures. While officials noted the right to lawful protest, many of their statements also condemned the violence, looting and arson by protesters on the streets and vowed punishment.
It was not immediately clear how many of those arrested would be charged and whether all those arrested were part of far-right marches.
Policing and Crime Minister Diana Johnson, in an interview on Sunday with Sky News, described the violence as “criminal disorder” and people participating in it as “thugs”. She said there will be strict consequences, which “could include imprisonment”. She said the Government would do what it could to swiftly move cases through the courts.
In Rotherham on Sunday, anti-immigration demonstrators attacked a Holiday Inn Express that was housing asylum seekers, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said.
Scores of violent far-right protesters, some holding signs reading “Stop the boats now”, had overshadowed a pro-immigrant crowd carrying “Refugees welcome stop the far right” messages.
Far-right protesters threw bricks and chairs at the hotel, some shattering glass windows and doors. They clashed with riot police, with one man photographed throwing a fire extinguisher at a clutch of shielded officers. Guests on the upper floors watched from their windows.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer laid a floral tribute to the child victims of the knife attack. Photo / Getty Images
Demonstrators gathered by a debris fire lit outside the hotel, with photographs showing masked protesters holding up an England flag with anarchist symbols spray-painted in each of its quadrants.
“The criminal, violent attack on a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham is utterly appalling,” Cooper, one of the most senior officials in the British Government, posted to X.
Rotherham’s Labour MP denounced the violence. “The people causing damage and attacking police do not represent our town and I am disgusted by their actions. This is criminal disorder and intimidation – not protest,” Sarah Champion posted online.
No one at the hotel picked up the phone on Sunday, and Rotherham police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The wave of violent demonstrations began after a Monday stabbing attack in Southport that killed three children and injured several other people, including two adults. Police charged a 17-year-old male with murder and attempted murder, without initially naming him because he is a minor. But within hours of the stabbing, false information that the attacker was an immigrant who was in the country illegally had been on watch lists circulated online and was amplified by prominent far-right figures, prompting anti-immigration demonstrations and the targeting of some mosques.
Hope Not Hate, an organisation that monitors far-right extremist groups, said that while these events were not planned by a single far-right organisation, they have been promoted and supported by known figures of the far right.
“The events often seem to be locally led and organised on an ad hoc basis, though there are examples of far-right individuals travelling in for the disturbances,” Joe Mulhall, the group’s director of research, said in an email on Sunday. The group said at least 16 events drew significant numbers of people over the past few days, adding that more were planned for the afternoon.
“Whilst Southport was the trigger, most of these protests and riots are more broadly focused, expressive of a wider hostility to multiculturalism, anti-Muslim and anti-migrant prejudice, as well as a visceral streak of populist anti-Government sentiment,” Mulhall added.
The unrest began soon after the Monday stabbing. On Tuesday night, after Southport held a peaceful public vigil, rioters threw bricks at police while smashing the windows of a mosque and torching a police van, chanting “we want our country back”. Police linked the rioters to the English Defence League, a now-disbanded organisation of anti-Islam agitators and soccer hooligans.
More violent protests occurred on Wednesday night in towns and cities including London, Hartlepool, Manchester and Aldershot. In London, more than 100 people were arrested near Downing St, where Britain’s Prime Minister works and resides.
On Thursday, a judge agreed to lift the anonymity of the suspect, in part to curb what he called the “idiotic rioting” caused by the speculation and misinformation over the defendant’s identity. The suspect, Axel Rudakubana, was born in the United Kingdom to parents who are originally from Rwanda.
On Saturday, Starmer met with senior ministers, including the home minister, justice secretary and policing minister, to discuss the protests, according to a Downing St news release. Starmer said during the meeting that police have his “full support” to take action against protesters and that there is “no excuse” for violence, according to the release.
There have also been massive public cleanup operations in the aftermath of some demonstrations, including in Sunderland and Southport, with local residents sweeping debris and helping to rebuild walls.
Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University who researches the spread of online misinformation, previously told the Post that a viral tweet that shared misinformation about the suspect after the attack appeared to have been “deliberately fabricated to generate hostility toward ethnic minorities and immigrants”. The claim spread quickly online amid high emotions after the attack, and because content restrictions on X have been loosened since it was acquired by Elon Musk in 2022.
Starmer, who visited Southport in recent days, warned social media companies to uphold laws that prohibit the incitement of violence online, adding that real-life riots were “clearly driven by far-right hatred”.
