Editorial
English riots, social media and the running sore of British politics
The murder of three little English girls attending a Taylor-Swift-themed dance class is erroneously pinned on a migrant by social media and causes nationwide rioting. Welcome to the new world disorder that has beset England just weeks after the election of a Labour government was supposed to provide a reset to cleanse the country of years of mismanagement.
A 17-year-old born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff, Wales was charged with the murders. No matter. A right wing racist group attacked a mosque in Southport in north-west England where the girls lived.
Far-right agitators in Liverpool and Manchester rioted and looted shops. Credit: Getty Images
Then protesters draped in St George and Union Jack flags attempted to torch migrant hotels in Rotherham and Tamworth and rioting has spread to Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Hull, Belfast and Stoke as town centres up and down the country and in Northern Ireland witnessed street battles. Scores of police have been injured, some 150 arrested.
England has been here before, most recently in the London riots of 2011. But if racism is the clarion call for the rioters, the latest confrontations have been notable for the number of young people attracted by social media to the thrill of violence rather than social engineering and ideology that fuelled racist protests of the past.
People intent on riot are long past caring about misinformation or disinformation, and social media manipulators have inveigled themselves into public credulousness to stir violent protest.
Sydney experienced such a phenomenon the day after the Bondi Junction mass stabbings last April when the livestreamed stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, a priest and a parishioner erupted across social media, with hundreds summonsed to riot outside the Assyrian Orthodox Church, Christ The Good Shepherd Church, in the suburb of Wakeley.
The stabbing was labelled by police a terrorist attack. Regrettably they continue: ASIO raised the national terrorism threat level on Monday after eight alleged terrorist incidents in Australia.
Immigration has become the running sore of British politics and was largely behind the self-destructive Brexit vote. But recent rioting has also highlighted the price paid when politicians allow the wheels of government to fall off: mistrust of police is at record highs; jails are overflowing; the judicial system is chaotic with people waiting two years for their day in court.
Failing public confidence in institutions opens the doors to rioting and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called an emergency meeting to restore order. “We’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, attacks on mosques … Nazi salutes in the street, attacks on the police, wanton violence alongside racist rhetoric, so no, I won’t shy away from calling it what it is: far-right thuggery,” he said.
Starmer has also warned social media companies to uphold laws that prohibit the incitement of violence online. But as Elon Musk’s High Court victory over Canberra’s demand to remove offensive material from X following the Wakeley attack illustrates, social media platforms can be recalcitrant when it comes to stopping violent manipulators using their platforms for evil.
Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.