The British police underestimated the climate of violence and the weight of disinformation which culminated in the far-right riots in the summer of 2024, an organization responsible for monitoring its action ruled on Wednesday.
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On July 29, 2024, the murder of three girls in Southport (northwest England) during a dance class sparked anti-immigration riots in dozens of towns in England and Northern Ireland, targeting mosques or hotels housing asylum seekers.
According to this report from HMICFRS, which supervises the action of the police and emergency services, a “series of violent incidents and public order disturbances occurring in the United Kingdom between 2023 and 2024” should have further alarmed the police and have them reassess the threat in advance.
Before these riots, “the police did not have a correct image of the rise in violence” in the country, underlines Chief Inspector Andy Cooke, cited in this report.
“There have been intelligence gaps, particularly around the analysis of social media and dark web content, and no one seemed to understand or be able to counter the causes and effects of disinformation” , he added.
Rumors about the suspect, whose parents are of Rwandan origin but who had been misrepresented as a Muslim asylum seeker, were spread by influential far-right accounts, leading to this outbreak of racist violence and xenophobic for almost a week.
In the preceding months, several events already bore the mark of “extreme nationalist feeling” or a risk of serious disorder, underlines the HMICFRS.
He cites in particular incidents that occurred in 2023 in England or Wales on hotel sites welcoming asylum seekers.
On November 11, 2023, London was also the scene of clashes between police and nationalist activists, before the organization of a large demonstration on July 27 – two days before the Southport attack – by the far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
During the riots, “the decision to coordinate and mobilize agents responsible for maintaining order on a national scale was taken too late”, also estimated Andy Cooke.
So far, 417 people have been sentenced across the country for this violence, including 369 to prison, according to a count carried out by the British news agency PA.
302 police officers were injured in these riots, the largest in the United Kingdom since 2011. Around fifty officers were hospitalized.
“I don’t think it will be long” before we see more riots, Andy Cook said on the BBC. “It will certainly not be 14 years,” he added, pointing to the responsibility of social networks.
To avoid new riots, the police “should be able to have better information and better fight disinformation,” he said.
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