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The Independent
15 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
A year after anti-immigrant riots in Britain, many worry it could happen again
The killing of three girls at a summer dance class in England a year ago Tuesday, by a teenager misidentified as a migrant, triggered days of street violence directed at newcomers and minorities. In the aftermath, communities came together to clear up the physical damage — but repairing the country's social fabric is harder. Experts and community groups warn that the mix of anger, fear, misinformation and political agitating that fueled the violence remains. In recent weeks it has bubbled over again on the streets of Epping, near London. 'Given a trigger event, none of the conditions of what happened last year have gone away,' said Sunder Katwala of British Future, a think tank that looks at issues including integration and national identity. He said there is a 'tense and quite febrile atmosphere' in some parts of the country. A solemn anniversary Three minutes of silence will be held Tuesday in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England, where the stabbing attack left three girls under 10 dead and eight children and two adults wounded. Over the following days, violence erupted in Southport and across England, driven partly by online misinformation saying the attacker was a migrant who had arrived in the U.K. by small boat. Because of British contempt of court and privacy laws, authorities were initially slow to disclose the suspect's identity: Axel Rudakubana, a British-born 17-year-old obsessed with violence. He later pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a life sentence. In the week after the attack, crowds in more than two dozen towns attacked hotels housing migrants, as well as mosques, police stations and a library. Some rioters targeted non-white people and threw bricks and fireworks at police. With a few days, larger numbers of people took to the streets to reclaim their communities, sweeping up broken glass and sending a message of welcome to newcomers. Tinderbox Britain A year on, the sight of migrants crossing the English Channel in dinghies — more than 22,000 so far this year — provides a focus for those concerned about the impact of immigration. Those concerns are often amplified by online rumor, scapegoating and misinformation, some of it deliberate. Add a sluggish economy, high housing costs, frayed public services and widespread distrust in politicians, and Britain, in the view of many commentators, has become a 'tinderbox.' Nigel Farage, leader of hard-right political party Reform UK, said last week that the country is close to 'civil disobedience on a vast scale.' The left-of-center Labour government agrees there is a problem. At a Cabinet meeting last week, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner noted that 17 of the 18 places that saw the worst disorder last year were among the most deprived in the country. She said that Britain is 'a successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith country,' but the government must show it has 'a plan to address people's concerns and provide opportunities for everyone to flourish.' The government has pledged to stop migrants trying to reach Britain across the Channel and to end the practice of lodging asylum-seekers in hotels, which have become flashpoints for tension. Critics say the government risks legitimizing protesters who in many cases are driven by intolerance and want to drive immigrants from their homes. In Ballymena, Northern Ireland, last month, rioters threw bricks, bottles, petrol bombs and fireworks and firebombed immigrants' houses after two Romanian-speaking 14-year-old boys were charged with sexual assault. Hundreds of people have protested this month outside a hotel housing asylum-seekers in Epping, a town on the edge of London, after a recently arrived migrant from Ethiopia was charged with sexual assault. He denies the charge. Scattered protests Protesters in Epping and a handful of other communities this summer have included local people, but also members of organized far-right groups who hope to capitalize on discord. Tiff Lynch, who heads the Police Federation officers union, wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the Epping disorder was 'a reminder of how little it takes for tensions to erupt and how ill-prepared we remain to deal with it.' Learning from last summer's violence, where the police and courts responded quickly to detain and charge hundreds of suspects, police have charged more than a dozen people over violence in Epping. A protest and antiracist counter-demonstration in the town on the weekend were peaceful. The online realm is harder to police. The British government, like others around the world, has struggled with how to stop toxic content on sites including X. Under the ownership of self-styled free-speech champion Elon Musk, X has gutted teams that once fought misinformation and restored the accounts of banned conspiracy theories and extremists. The government has cited the amount of time people spend alone online as a factor behind polarization and fraying social bonds. Grounds for optimism Families of the three girls who died in Southport — Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and 6-year-old Bebe King — have called for quiet and respectful commemorations. Local authorities have asked people not to lay flowers, but to consider donating to causes set up in the victim's memories. The team behind Elsie's Story, a children's charity set up by Stancombe's family, posted on Instagram: 'Our girls, our town, will not be remembered for the events of that day, but for everything we are building together.' Katwala said that despite a 'sense of disconnection and frustration at national politics and national institutions,' there are grounds for optimism. 'Britain is less heated and less polarized than the United States, by quite a long way,' he said. 'People's interpersonal trust remains quite high. Seven out of 10 people think their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well. They're just worried about the state of the nation.'
BreakingNews.ie
16 hours ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Girl stabbed in Southport attack calls for first aid training in schools
A girl who thought she was 'going to die' after being stabbed in the Southport attack has called for mandatory first aid training in schools. In an interview with Sky News marking one year since the attack, when Axel Rudakubana killed three schoolchildren, the girl said it was 'disgusting' that young people carried knives. Advertisement The girl had attended the Taylor Swift dance class with her younger sister on July 29 last year. She was stabbed in her arm and her back by Rudakubana, during the attack in which he murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and attempted to kill eight other children and two adults. Describing the incident, the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: 'Some of the girls were sat down in a circle making bracelets with the teachers, and then a couple of them were getting up to get beads and I was stood in between two tables, and he came through the doors and stabbed a little girl in front of me, and then came for me and stabbed my arm. 'I turned and then he stabbed my back, even though I didn't feel it at the time, and then I went on to the landing where there was a bunch of girls huddled around, so I just started pushing them down the stairs, telling them to get out and to run.' Advertisement She added: 'I was thinking 'Where's my sister?' and 'We need to get out'. 'So I was just trying to get as many people out as I could, just trying to help them and get them to safety.' 'I just thought I was going to die,' the girl added. Asked what she remembered most about her attacker, she said 'his eyes'. Advertisement 'They just didn't look human, they looked possessed. 'It was kind of like a dream, I don't know how else to explain it, it was kind of like a dream and you're on a movie set and you're watching yourself go through it and make these decisions.' The girl said the neighbours who helped the victims and sheltered some of the children in their house 'deserve recognition', as do the other girls who were present at the attack. She has since launched a campaign for children to receive mandatory first aid training in school, and a clothing range called Go Anywhere, Be Anything, which highlights knife crime. Advertisement 'Everyone that's going out and carrying knives is getting younger and younger and to think that it's people my age is disgusting,' the girl said. 'To think that anyone does it at all is disgusting. 'But I just want to try and do the best I can to let people know that it's not OK to do that.' After learning that Rudakubana had pleaded guilty, meaning that she was no longer required to give evidence at his trial, the girl said she was 'raging' and that it had been 'so much stress' preparing to face him in the courtroom. Advertisement The killer, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years, in January. On her hopes for the inquiry into the incident, and whether it could have been prevented, she said: 'That they get the facts of all the failings that happened, and that we rectify it so that it doesn't happen again, because he just slipped through the net didn't he, when you think about it?' She added: 'You live in fear every day that it could happen again, and my sister is like, just nervous leaving the house, going to school. 'When she's in the car, she's asking if the doors are locked and if anyone can get in. She just… it's truly traumatised.' Of the effects on herself a year on, the girl said: 'I'm physically getting better every day and healing. 'Obviously, my scars stay as a reminder but everyone on that day is going to have mental scars forever.'
The Independent
16 hours ago
- The Independent
Girl stabbed in Southport attack calls for first aid training in schools
A girl who thought she was 'going to die' after being stabbed in the Southport attack has called for mandatory first aid training in schools. In an interview with Sky News marking one year since the attack, when Axel Rudakubana killed three schoolchildren, the girl said it was 'disgusting' that young people carried knives. The girl had attended the Taylor Swift dance class with her younger sister on July 29 last year. She was stabbed in her arm and her back by Rudakubana, during the attack in which he murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and attempted to kill eight other children and two adults. Describing the incident, the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: 'Some of the girls were sat down in a circle making bracelets with the teachers, and then a couple of them were getting up to get beads and I was stood in between two tables, and he came through the doors and stabbed a little girl in front of me, and then came for me and stabbed my arm. 'I turned and then he stabbed my back, even though I didn't feel it at the time, and then I went on to the landing where there was a bunch of girls huddled around, so I just started pushing them down the stairs, telling them to get out and to run.' She added: 'I was thinking 'Where's my sister?' and 'We need to get out'. 'So I was just trying to get as many people out as I could, just trying to help them and get them to safety.' 'I just thought I was going to die,' the girl added. Asked what she remembered most about her attacker, she said 'his eyes'. 'They just didn't look human, they looked possessed. 'It was kind of like a dream, I don't know how else to explain it, it was kind of like a dream and you're on a movie set and you're watching yourself go through it and make these decisions.' The girl said the neighbours who helped the victims and sheltered some of the children in their house 'deserve recognition', as do the other girls who were present at the attack. She has since launched a campaign for children to receive mandatory first aid training in school, and a clothing range called Go Anywhere, Be Anything, which highlights knife crime. 'Everyone that's going out and carrying knives is getting younger and younger and to think that it's people my age is disgusting,' the girl said. 'To think that anyone does it at all is disgusting. 'But I just want to try and do the best I can to let people know that it's not OK to do that.' After learning that Rudakubana had pleaded guilty, meaning that she was no longer required to give evidence at his trial, the girl said she was 'raging' and that it had been 'so much stress' preparing to face him in the courtroom. The killer, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years, in January. On her hopes for the inquiry into the incident, and whether it could have been prevented, she said: 'That they get the facts of all the failings that happened, and that we rectify it so that it doesn't happen again, because he just slipped through the net didn't he, when you think about it?' She added: 'You live in fear every day that it could happen again, and my sister is like, just nervous leaving the house, going to school. 'When she's in the car, she's asking if the doors are locked and if anyone can get in. She just… it's truly traumatised.' Of the effects on herself a year on, the girl said: 'I'm physically getting better every day and healing. 'Obviously, my scars stay as a reminder but everyone on that day is going to have mental scars forever.'
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Girl stabbed in Southport attack calls for first aid training in schools
A girl who thought she was 'going to die' after being stabbed in the Southport attack has called for mandatory first aid training in schools. In an interview with Sky News marking one year since the attack, when Axel Rudakubana killed three schoolchildren, the girl said it was 'disgusting' that young people carried knives. The girl had attended the Taylor Swift dance class with her younger sister on July 29 last year. She was stabbed in her arm and her back by Rudakubana, during the attack in which he murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and attempted to kill eight other children and two adults. Describing the incident, the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: 'Some of the girls were sat down in a circle making bracelets with the teachers, and then a couple of them were getting up to get beads and I was stood in between two tables, and he came through the doors and stabbed a little girl in front of me, and then came for me and stabbed my arm. 'I turned and then he stabbed my back, even though I didn't feel it at the time, and then I went on to the landing where there was a bunch of girls huddled around, so I just started pushing them down the stairs, telling them to get out and to run.' She added: 'I was thinking 'Where's my sister?' and 'We need to get out'. 'So I was just trying to get as many people out as I could, just trying to help them and get them to safety.' 'I just thought I was going to die,' the girl added. Asked what she remembered most about her attacker, she said 'his eyes'. 'They just didn't look human, they looked possessed. 'It was kind of like a dream, I don't know how else to explain it, it was kind of like a dream and you're on a movie set and you're watching yourself go through it and make these decisions.' The girl said the neighbours who helped the victims and sheltered some of the children in their house 'deserve recognition', as do the other girls who were present at the attack. She has since launched a campaign for children to receive mandatory first aid training in school, and a clothing range called Go Anywhere, Be Anything, which highlights knife crime. 'Everyone that's going out and carrying knives is getting younger and younger and to think that it's people my age is disgusting,' the girl said. 'To think that anyone does it at all is disgusting. 'But I just want to try and do the best I can to let people know that it's not OK to do that.' After learning that Rudakubana had pleaded guilty, meaning that she was no longer required to give evidence at his trial, the girl said she was 'raging' and that it had been 'so much stress' preparing to face him in the courtroom. The killer, who was 17 at the time of the attack, was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 52 years, in January. On her hopes for the inquiry into the incident, and whether it could have been prevented, she said: 'That they get the facts of all the failings that happened, and that we rectify it so that it doesn't happen again, because he just slipped through the net didn't he, when you think about it?' She added: 'You live in fear every day that it could happen again, and my sister is like, just nervous leaving the house, going to school. 'When she's in the car, she's asking if the doors are locked and if anyone can get in. She just… it's truly traumatised.' Of the effects on herself a year on, the girl said: 'I'm physically getting better every day and healing. 'Obviously, my scars stay as a reminder but everyone on that day is going to have mental scars forever.'
The Independent
16 hours ago
- The Independent
Southport's Muslims still plagued by Islamophobic incidents a year on from race riots, imam says
Southport continues to be plagued by Islamophobic incidents a year after the deadly knife attack that sparked race riots last year, the chairman of its mosque has revealed. Imam Ibrahim Hussein, the chairman of Southport Mosque, said members had reported six incidents to the police since last July – a sharp increase from the three he said they had reported over the 30 years since they opened in the town. The mosque in the seaside town found itself at the centre of nationwide riots last July, sparked by misinformation spread online following an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport that killed three young girls. Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, died, and eight more girls and two adults were left wounded when a knifeman stormed the class before being detained by police. Mr Hussein said the memory of the attack was 'in his head all the time' and he remembers how the community was hoping to support the families in any way possible. 'It doesn't leave me for any one night. Of course, when the awful attack happened, we were devastated... We were hoping we could offer the family any support in any small way we could. Just being there and offering prayers. 'But we very quickly had reports come in saying we would be targeted.' The mosque found itself at the centre of the Islamophobic rioting the evening after the attack, after false reports that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker. 'In the evening, it escalated very quickly into a big mob charging at us. We were trapped in from 8pm to just before 1am in the morning,' he recalled. But the next day, the local community came out 'in droves' to rebuild the mosque's broken wall and offer support. He said: 'The response from the local community was more than great. We always knew we were on good terms with our neighbours, there has been nothing but mutual respect between us and on that morning they all came out in droves to support us and the muslim community.' However, a year on, Mr Hussein said Southport's small Muslim community continues to feel nervous amid rising Islamophobia. He said: 'In the last 30 years, since the mosque has been here, there were about three reported incidents – one every ten years on average. 'But in the last year, there have been six or seven incidents we've had to report. Islamophobia is going through the roof really – even though people now know we had nothing to do with anything.' Incidents targeting Muslims in the area have included objects being thrown at the mosque as well as cars being scratched. In June, it was reported that the back window of a mosque was damaged by an object suspected to have been thrown by a catapult. 'People are apprehensive and are feeling kind of worried. There is an undercurrent of something going on, but we can't put our finger on it. So I've had to warn people to be vigilant and careful.' He added how this had coincided with incidents across the country in recent weeks targeting asylum seekers and other mosques. Last month, a 34-year-old man appeared in court over an attack on the Islamic Centre in Belfast. Police previously said a viable device was thrown through a window of the centre during evening prayer on Friday. Last year, Tell Mama, a charity monitoring Islamophobic incidents, said a survey had found a majority of Muslims felt hate against them had become more widespread since the summer riots. The organisation analysed the opinions of 750 Muslims across the UK eight weeks after the disorder broke out in parts of England and Northern Ireland. Tell Mama said just under three-quarters (71 per cent) felt anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia had become more widespread since the unrest. Almost two-thirds (62 per cent) said the potential risk of harm to Muslim communities had since increased significantly or somewhat.
