While far right politics has been advancing for a decade, the last two years have brought about a qualitative change – the violent street movement has moved from the fringes, with movements such as the EDL, into the centre of the national debate. The Southport riot started on 30 July 2024, following misinformation by far-right social media accounts circulated online claiming the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker, then spread across England and Northern Ireland, with riots in cities and towns including London, Manchester, Hartlepool, Sunderland, Liverpool, Blackpool, Rotherham and Belfast. Recently, two stabbings, one in Southampton and one in Belfast, have fueled violent riots in England and Northern Ireland. Especially in the Belfast riots, there was an explicit attempt to drive Black people out of their homes and businesses.
Contrary to their portrayal in the media, these disturbances are not protests expressing the frustration of people with ‘legitimate’ concerns. They take the form of people from a racial majority seeking to attack and drive out people from racial minorities.They are race riots, with the Belfast disturbances in particular becoming pogroms. For instance, there is evidence that far right activists “were circulating the addresses of properties that were targeted in this week’s Belfast riots”. They therefore have more in common with the race riots that took place in 1958 in Nottingham and Notting Hill. Moreover, mainstream politicians are attempting to create a “white lives matter” movement, in an attempt to roll back the gains made by Black struggle over several decades.
Whenever developments as serious as these occur, a counter movement has to be mobilised in order to stop it in its tracks and drive it into reverse. This must build upon and extend the movements currently existing which express the struggle against racism so far developed. To this end it is vital that anti-racists together with activists involved in the Black Liberation movement carry forward a discussion of this new situation. The new blog For Liberation, Against Racism, will be contributing to that discussion.
The above article was originally published here on the For Liberation, Against Racism blog.
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