Police officers injured, stores looted, hotels housing asylum-seekers stormed. These scenes, strikingly reminiscent of darker times, played out in the United Kingdom recently during weeklong riots.

On July 29, three young girls were killed, and eight children and two adults were injured in a knife attack during a dance class in the coastal town of Southport, Merseyside in northwest England. The attack was allegedly committed, for unfathomable reasons, by a British-born 17-year-old youth with parents from Rwanda who are practicing Christians, according to UK news outlet The Mirror.

However, social media posts falsely claiming that the attacker was a Muslim who had arrived illegally by boat triggered violent anti-Muslim and anti-immigration protests in major cities, including London, Manchester and Liverpool—"driven by far-right and supremacist groups," according to U.S. news portal Politico.

The latest figures on August 19 showed that more than 1,100 people had been arrested and around 600 had been charged over the disorder and unrest. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated about the events: "This is not a protest, it is organized, violent thuggery and it has no place on our streets or online."

"In truth, though, it was a manifestation of a society that has long been unhappy with itself," Robert Walker, a professor of public policy at Jingshi Academy, Beijing Normal University, and a professor emeritus of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford in the UK, told Beijing Review.

It is the culmination of contradictions and grievances in the political, economic and social aspects of the UK over many years, and reflects the extreme division and split in their—the British political circle and people of all segments of society—stances on issues such as immigration, religion and social security, Dong Yifan, an associate researcher with the Institute of European Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told Beijing Review.

Misinformation

"Social media—some might say the abuse of social media—was the fuse that ignited the explosion of violence," Walker said.

"It first carried, then spread—virus-like—the falsehood that the attacker was an asylum seeker with a Muslim-sounding name who had arrived [in the country] by boat in 2023 and was known to the security services," he said.

The original post ended with the sentence "If this is true, then all hell is about to break loose."

"And it did," Walker said. The fact that protests took place in 80 locations across much of the UK, also evidences the role of social media, he added.

Far-right groups use social media to quickly spread hate speech and disinformation, adding fuel to social unrest, according to Shen Yi, Director of the Research Center of Cyberspace Governance at Shanghai-based Fudan University.

In the case of the UK riots, the radical rhetoric of religious extremism and the xenophobic sentiments of the far right were intertwined on social media, further exacerbating social divisions. This interaction was not only manifested in online speech but also translated into real actions, Shen added.

Society's unhappiness was exploited by far-right extremists, arguably given confidence by mainstream politicians who utter words that might be interpreted as a legitimization of extremist actions, Walker said.

Some politicians, such as controversial far-right activist Tommy Robinson and leader of the Reform UK Party Nigel Farage, continued to make inflammatory remarks, while the far-right, anti-Islam English Defence League has been one of the most radical groups inciting xenophobia online, Dong said.

The UK Government announced that it would strengthen control over social media, and is considering reviewing the Online Safety Act that was introduced in October 2023, which allows the UK's Internet regulatory agency to intensify control and penalties for some legal but harmful content, such as political disinformation.

Anti-immigration sentiment

Vera Tolz-Zilitinkevic, a historian with the University of Manchester, told German public broadcaster DW News that the riots had their origins in the economic decline of the 2008 worldwide financial crisis and then in the public discourse surrounding the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union in 2016—also known as Brexit.

"We had, during the campaign around the Brexit referendum, all sorts of mainstream and non-mainstream politicians blaming socioeconomic problems on migrants. That resonates with certain kinds of individuals, particularly people from left-behind communities," she said.

For a long time, there has been a sense of dissatisfaction toward immigrants with racial and religious differences among some sectors of middle and lower classes of British society, Dong said, adding that they believe that the arrival of these immigrants has impacted British employment, benefits, community structure and even social security.

However, the problem of illegal immigration in the UK has not been eased by Brexit; on the contrary, it has worsened.

Data from the UK Home Office and the Ministry of Defense also showed that as of late June, more than 13,000 illegal immigrants had crossed the English Channel to the UK this year—a new high in four years.

The financial burden of households worsened after the Russia-Ukraine conflict erupted in early 2022 with soaring energy prices, sending inflation to more than 10 percent that same year. Extra checks and tariffs following Brexit and the uncertainty of the talks on free trade thereafter have only added to these livelihood woes, Huang Fei, an associate professor of Western left-wing studies at the School of International Studies, Beijing-based Renmin University of China, told newspaper China Daily.

According to her, the lackluster performance of the British economy in recent years has also added to public dissatisfaction with the government. The UK's GDP grew by 0.1 percent year on year in 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics. Soon after it came to power, the Starmer-led Labour government declared at the end of July that the country was "broke and broken."

Against this backdrop, what some members of the British public see is the increasing challenge of refugees and immigrants after Brexit, and ineffectiveness measures of the government, Dong said.

That won't heal wounds

"Increasing populations have been left feeling rejected and in need of scapegoats: first Europe and migration; and now, after Brexit, immigration, asylum seekers, Muslims and other cultural and ethnic minorities," Walker said.

This situation has been inflamed by extreme right-wing groups, small in number and with limited followings, and by national leaders who, prepared to ignore national and international law and to lie for political or personal gain, have removed law and truth as foundations of democratic choice, he added.

Farage, whose Reform UK Party received 4 million votes and won five seats in parliament in July's national election, ran on an anti-immigration platform and has publicly labeled the arrival of migrants in the UK as an "invasion." Farage was also one of the major figures behind the Brexit referendum.

Politicians may take comfort from the short-lived nature of the riots and claim credit for rapid imprisonment as a deterrent, Walker said, adding that they similarly praise the thousands of citizens who challenged the protesters or cleared up after the destruction.

Nevertheless, the core problem remains, Walker warned, adding that "social cohesion has been destroyed by facilitating the largely unchecked accumulation of personal and corporate wealth and by encouraging voters to prioritize personal self-interest above the common good."

The worsening political and social environment in the UK is also depleting international confidence in its investment and business climate, Dong said.

Against the backdrop of economic downturn and increased social dissatisfaction in the UK, extremely violent behavior is once again likely to become a dangerous outlet for people to vent their emotions, he warned.

(Print Edition Title: A Britain Divided)

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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