UK police urge calm as anti-immigration violence escalates following Southport stabbing attack

Police warned on Sunday that efforts to deal with violence that has erupted in cities in recent days after a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class that left three girls dead and several injured meant other crimes may not be fully investigated.

The warning comes a day after dozens of people were arrested as anti-immigration activists clashed with migrant protesters across the UK, with violent scenes unfolding in many locations across the country, from Northern Ireland’s capital Belfast to Liverpool in the northwest of England and Bristol in the west. More arrests are likely as police scour CCTV, social media and body camera footage.

In just one incident on Saturday, Merseyside Police said around 300 people were involved in violent rioting in Liverpool, which saw a community facility set alight. The Spellow Lane Library Hub suffered severe damage to the ground floor. Police said protesters tried to prevent firefighters from accessing the blaze by throwing a missile at the fire engine and smashing the cab’s rear window.

Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram said the attack was not just on the building but “on our community” and “an insult to the families who are still grieving and the survivors who are still struggling to come to terms with Monday’s attack”.

More meetings are scheduled for Sunday and police will continue to mount a massive security operation, deploying thousands of officers on the streets, many in riot gear. Police have also made more jail cells available and are deploying surveillance and facial recognition technology.

“We are seeing officers being taken out of day-to-day policing,” Tiffany Lynch, a spokeswoman for the Police Federation of England and Wales, told the BBC. “But while this is happening, the communities out there who are having incidents against them — victims of crime — unfortunately, their crimes are not being investigated.”

Violence erupted earlier this week in protest at Monday’s stabbing attack in Southport. The 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants was arrested.

False rumors spread online that the teenager was a Muslim and an immigrant, fueling anger among right-wing protesters. Suspects under 18 are not usually named in the UK, but Judge Andrew Menary ordered that Welsh-born Axel Rudakubana be identified, in part to prevent the spread of misinformation.

Police said many of the actions were being organised online by shadowy nationalist groups, who were rallying support online with slogans such as “enough is enough”, “save our children” and “stop the boats”. Counter-protests were also expected from the Stand Up To Racism organisation.

Calls for protests have come from a scattered group of social media accounts, but a key player in amplifying them is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a longtime agitator who goes by the name Tommy Robinson. He has led the English Defence League, which Merseyside Police linked to the violent protest in Southport on Tuesday, a day after the stabbing. The group first emerged around 2009, leading a series of protests against what it described as militant Islam that often descended into violence.

The group’s membership and impact waned after a few years, and Yaxley-Lennon, 41, has faced a myriad of legal troubles. He was arrested for assault, contempt of court and mortgage fraud and is currently facing an arrest warrant after leaving the UK last week ahead of a scheduled hearing in a contempt of court case against him.

Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, who was elected to parliament in July for the first time as leader of Reform UK, has also been blamed by many for indirectly encouraging the anti-immigrant sentiment that has been evident in recent days. In condemning the violence, he criticised the government for blaming “a few far-right thugs” and saying that “the far right is a reaction to fear… shared by tens of millions of people”.

Right-wing protesters have held several violent gatherings since the stabbing, clashing with police on Tuesday outside a mosque in Southport — near the scene of the stabbing — and throwing beer cans, bottles and flares near the prime minister’s office in London the following day. Many in Southport expressed anger at the organized acts of violence in the wake of the tragedy.

Monday’s attack on children at a Taylor Swift-themed summer dance class shocked a country where knife crime is a long-standing and vexing problem, although mass stabbings are rare.

Rudakubana has been charged with murder over the attack that killed Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6. He has also been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder for the eight children and two adults who were injured.

New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer blamed the violence on “far-right hatred” and vowed to end the chaos. He said police across the UK would be given more resources to prevent “a breakdown of law and order on our streets”.