The wave of violent unrest and disorder across parts of the UK continued on Monday night as police came under attack in Belfast, Darlington and Plymouth.

Six people were arrested in Plymouth while several officers suffered minor injuries in the violence, Devon and Cornwall Police said.

In South Belfast, riot officers had stones and petrol bombs thrown at them in an area close to a supermarket which was set on fire at the weekend.

Earlier, a vigil was held for the victims of a mass stabbing in Southport last week which sparked the unrest. Nearly 400 people have been arrested since the rioting began.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    441·
    3 months ago

    I understand people are angry at the individual idiot who killed 3 girls, but honestly! What are these rioters trying to accomplish?
    Is this what Nigel Farage has been trying to incite for a decade now? While at the same time literally claiming Brits are the most decent people in the world!

    • small44@lemmy.worldEnglish
      653·
      3 months ago

      Th person who killed them was neither a muslim and neither an emigrant. The incident is just an excuse to show their racisism

      • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        102·
        3 months ago

        I haven’t been able to find anything about motive or race, but I suppose people are assuming he is a Muslim?
        It doesn’t have to be an immigrant, if it’s a 2nd generation Brit, I bet that counts too.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
          421·
          3 months ago

          If it’s a fifth generation Brit it counts.

          There have been black people in Britain for longer than a lot of these British people’s ancestors were there. Farage sure as hell isn’t an English name. The first black people came to Britain in the third century with the Romans.

          Black histories are a vital part of England’s story, reaching back many centuries. There is evidence of African people in Roman Britain as far back as the 3rd century AD, and black communities have been present since at least 1500.

          https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/black-history/

          There is evidence of Muslims in Britain in Chaucer’s day, but there definitely were Muslims in London by the mid-1600s.

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/uk_1.shtml

          South Asians have been in Britain in significant numbers since the 17th century.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asians_in_the_United_Kingdom

          They don’t care though. All they see is skin color.

          • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
            212·
            3 months ago

            They don’t care though. All they see is skin color.

            I see your conservatives are the same as ours.

            As a side note, everything you posted was new to my knowledge of your history, and I’ve saved the post. Thanks!

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
              12·
              3 months ago

              If by ours, you mean Americans, I’m actually a dual citizen but I’ve spent almost all of my life in the U.S.

              I just try my best to learn about the UK since I have the passport and all.

          • sandbox@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            3 months ago

            Farage is an anglicisation of a centuries old Scottish name, just so you know. But you’re right that it isn’t about anything beyond skin colour.

    • Redacted@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      3 months ago

      Guessing you might have been being rhetorical but I’ll give my take anyway… The stabbings were just the spark that ignighted it all.

      They do not have a common goal but they are united in thinking immigration levels are too high, despite it being a net benefit to the country. From what I’ve seen they generally fall into 3 groups:

      1. EDL/BNP/facists/racists who have been whipping up anti-immigration rhetoric forever. Emboldened by extreme language used by Farage, successive Conservative governments and no doubt rhetoric from the convicted felon across the pond. They blamed the stabbings (and every problem ever) on immigrants despite the fact it was carried out by an autistic kid born in this country.

      2. Brexit/Reform voters who see themselves as “more centrist” because they aren’t as far-right as #1. They blame years of austerity, worstening living conditions and growing class divide on the idea “the country is full”. They thought Brexit was supposed to solve this and are now protesting because it hasn’t. They claim it wasn’t done properly so voted Reform but got a more centrist government instead. They want to make their dissatisfaction heard but as far as I know do not condone the violence. They might now know the stabbings were not linked to migration but the issue has escalated beyond that incident now.

      3. Young people who are generally not very well informed on any of the issues and have been fed misinformation on their various social media channels encouraging them to join the protests. It’s the holidays, they are impressionable and angry. They think they’re part of some revolutionary movement or just drunk and up for some chaos so are out with their mates filming it all in their phones for the views. I imagine as they become more informed they will align with #1 or #2.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
      91·
      3 months ago

      They think by criminally rioting, they’ll get all of those horrible criminal foreigners out of the country and make it safe from criminals.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        3 months ago

        Yes I suppose it’s to make them not feel welcome, and to force them out of the country.
        I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them, feel justified in punishing completely innocent people of something somebody else did.
        It’s sad that we have that kind of extremists everywhere. Absolutely zero moral compass or empathy.

  • Naich@lemmings.worldEnglish
    194·
    3 months ago

    " a vigil was held for the victims of a mass stabbing in Southport last week which sparked the unrest" - just to be clear the stabbing sparked the unrest, not the vigil. BBC reporting just gets worse and worse.

    • tlou3please@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      3 months ago

      It was neither the stabbing nor the vigil.

      It’s uneducated white thugs who have been told for years that immigrants and Muslims are the reason they’re struggling.

    • Blizzard@lemmy.zipEnglish
      648·
      3 months ago

      They also keep branding it ‘far-right’ but it’s never explained how they know it.

  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    I do wonder if the real reason it’s kicking off is the massive cost of living crisis, and the specific trigger event could have been anything.