Clashes between police and far-right protesters break out in several cities in the UK

Violence was reported on Saturday, particularly in Liverpool, Manchester and Belfast, the day after the riots which shook the city of Sunderland.

Violence broke out in Liverpool, Manchester and Belfast in protests taking place across the UK on Saturday, August 3, in a tense climate following the riots that rocked the city of Sunderland. These gatherings began after the knife attack that killed three girls in Southport (north-west England) on Monday, after rumours circulated about the religion and identity of the suspect, Axel Rudakubana, a 17-year-old teenager. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded to the clashes, insisting that there was no “no excuse for violence”.

In total, more than thirty calls for demonstrations have been launched in the United Kingdom for this weekend, most of them responding to anti-immigration slogans. and anti-Muslim “Enough is enough!” (Enough is enough!), widely circulated on social media, according to a survey by anti-racism group Hope Not Hate. Concern is particularly high among Muslim religious leaders, as a mosque was targeted in Sunderland, as in Southport during previous clashes on Tuesday.

Despite the Labour government’s tough talk against what it called “far-right hatred”the United Kingdom is in its third day of violence, following those that shook Southport on Tuesday, London and other cities on Wednesday, and Sunderland (northeast) on Friday. Reported in several cities, including Leeds (north), Nottingham (central), Portsmouth (south) and Belfast, in Northern Ireland, Saturday’s rallies were widely relayed on social networks by figures of the hard right, such as the founder and former leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson.

The situation, often tense, with several counter-demonstrations organized at the call of anti-racist movements, sometimes degenerated, as in Liverpool. In this working-class city in the northwest of England, demonstrators threw chairs, bricks and other projectiles at the police, an AFP photographer noted.

In Manchester, scuffles broke out between protesters and police, who tried to keep a counter-protest at a distance to avoid clashes between the two groups, according to the BBC. “Several Police officers injured while dealing with serious disorder in Liverpool city centreMerseyside Police announced on X. “This behavior (…) will not be tolerated. And we will arrest those responsible”she added.

In Nottingham, police also intervened between protesters, with a group shouting anti-migrant slogans and waving British flags on one side, and a group shouting back with the slogan: “Refugees are welcome here”according to an AFP journalist on the scene. In Hull, in the northeast, protesters smashed the windows of a hotel used to house asylum seekers, according to the BBC, while in Belfast, firecrackers were thrown during tense exchanges between an anti-Muslim group and anti-racist protesters.