The United Kingdom woke up Sunday morning to city streets covered in debris and smoldering rubbish as a weekend of far-right, anti-immigration demonstrations — stoked by conspiracy theories spread on social media — erupted into violence in seven cities across the nation.
Police arrested at least 100 people, and riot police wearing helmets and holding shields came out in force as Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to take action against “extremists.”
On Saturday, groups in Leeds waving St. George’s Cross flags, England’s national flag regularly flown by far-right groups, shouted “Muslims off our streets,” pairing it with a slur suggesting they were criminal child abusers. In the city of Hull, rioters threw bottles and smashed a window at a hotel housing asylum-seekers as demonstrators clashed with police.
What started as targeted anti-immigration demonstrations quickly descended into directionless disorder. A library in Liverpool, reopened in 2023 as an “education to employment” service for people of all abilities, was set ablaze.
On Reddit, the UK subs got extra racist.
Maybe they’ve always been and I’m too thick of an American to understand. But top comments strongly hinting at violence was at the top.
The racists are getting louder because people like me are leaving Reddit. It’s fast becoming a nazi bar.
REddit mods and admins give the hard right extra leeway, temp bans for death threats.
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I got permabanned from reddit for calling out zionist bullshit.
I’m sensing some Israeli astroturfing going on. Many people are seeing Israel for what it is from since last year. In all this, Israel could use some diversion of attention.
And what better place to concentrate your efforts on other than the rise in islamophoia along with racism in current events. Help dehumanize your enemy abroad. Although the killer wasn’t even a muslim, they are still being targeted, even after the facts came out.
Seems very suspicious to me and Israel isn’t new to brigading and astroturfing. They in-fact have state-run programmes for it.
as does Russia. As does China. it’s in everyone’s interest to create shit sandwiches for the Brits to eat.
We aren’t all racist. Far right are just incredibly vocal. It’s the same everywhere. Left leaning population are also quieter.
They have always been. I had the option to move to England permanently and decided not to. The reality there is not pretty. If you’re a 100% white local you probably won’t notice.
100% white, cis, and straight.
There’s this transmasc / enby / bigender “influencer” (Eddie Engels) who’s planning on moving to the UK (and not exactly to what anybody would call a liberal-minded area either iirc) to be close to his currently long-distance boyfriend, and I feel sorry for the guy. He’s just such a quintessentially queer character that it’s likely he’s actually not going to be safe there, and I really don’t know if he’s thought this thing through too well…
the things we do for love 🤷
Edit: I had to check because somebody asked, but it was actually Bristol he’s moving to, which should be completely fine. Vague memory was vague, heh
I saw a young Asian-Canadian twitch live streamer visit one of the worse areas and he had no idea how close he came to being killed (at least until it was almost too late). A gang of teens with knives came after him. The second they pulled masks over their face I knew he was probably finished. Thankfully some cops saved him and dropped him back near his hotel in a tourist area.
Where did he move to?
Hasn’t moved yet. I did a quick search and turns out he’s moving to Bristol so it’s not as bad as it could be, I had a vague memory it was more up north
Bristol is great as long as he finds a nice area there etc he should do just fine. Generally very friendly, accepting etc. Obviously has some bastards around the edges but yeah. Has a green MP etc etc.
Oh yeah every place has its bastards, but like you said Bristol should be OK. I honestly remembered it was Birmingham or something, heh
What’s Birmingham like these days? Ages since I was there tbh.
Oh I haven’t been there in yonks either, I just used it as an example of a… err, less than ideal destination for a very queer person. Based on news and things I’ve heard from others I’ve understood they have a bit of an LGBT+ hate crime problem (see eg. https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birminghams-hate-crime-hotspots-map-22654363)
Are they quintessentially Arab too?
Uh, what?
Sucks we ceded all social media to the racists and advertisers that encourage them because of how much more engaged they are online
Theyre european.
And europe as a whole is crazy racist. Just bring up roma, north africans, or middle easterners.
Gets real “they dont belong here” real fast
It’s not, it’s just that people with extreme views get a lot of attention/coverage. Those people exist, and there’s more than I’d personally like there to be, but they’re still in the minorty (those at the ‘crazy’ level, there is a lot of ‘racist lites’ of course). Just as an Englishman that I am, seeing the US being portayed as chock full of far right Trump worshippers wanting to overthrow democracy. Not least mention, Mexico.
Racist racist or “they disagree with me on this issue therefore they’re racist!”?
I dunno man. Depends on if “Typical immigrants” is racist to you or not. (Spoiler: it is)