Search Articles
(CN) — Great Britain was in a state of shock Wednesday after far-right anti-immigrant rioters injured more than 50 police officers and attacked a mosque in Southport, a northwest English seaside town where three girls were killed by an unidentified 17-year-old in a gruesome mass stabbing Monday.
The riot broke out Tuesday evening only a few hours after a vigil was held for the three girls slain in Monday’s attacks at a Taylor Swift-themed summer dance and yoga class. Ten other people were injured, among whom five children and two adults remained in critical condition.
The newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, faced his first serious domestic test with the riot exposing widespread fears over security and immigration amid a shuddering economy and a strengthening far right. He paid tribute to the victims, police and emergency workers on Tuesday by laying flowers in Southport.
“Those who have hijacked the vigil for the victims with violence and thuggery have insulted the community as it grieves,” Starmer said on X. “They will feel the full force of the law.”
Police said they had arrested four men.
Rioters hurled bricks, trash cans and other projectiles at police and tried to ransack a local mosque, forcing the imam to barricade himself inside. At least one police van was set on fire and 54 officers were injured, eight seriously, police said. A store was also looted and the Southport Islamic Society Mosque was damaged.
Residents described the scenes to journalists as “absolute mayhem,” “a war zone” and “scary.”
“I think I can speak for the entirety of the Southport community when I say those were not our people,” said Richard Townes, a Southport resident, speaking on Sky News television. “Wherever they’ve come from, whatever their intentions, they were looking for some kind of excuse to incite violence.”
The scenes of mayhem in Southport were similar to those that erupted last November in Dublin, Ireland. Those riots, fueled by online outrage and stoked by far-right agitators, also came after stabbings in the Irish capital.
After the Southport stabbings, rumors and false information spread online about the attacker’s identity, filling a vacuum left by authorities who withheld details about the teenager, citing privacy laws for people under the age of 18.
British media have reported that the attacker lived in a town near Southport, he was born in Cardiff and that his parents were born in Rwanda.
Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said she was “disgusted and appalled” by the violence against her officers. She said those involved came from outside Southport, a town near Liverpool.
“This is not Southport. This is a close-knit, family-tight community,” she said, speaking to journalists. “They were there purely for hooliganism and thuggery in terms of bringing that level of violence and that behavior onto the streets of Southport.”
Ibrahim Hussein, the chairman of the Southport Islamic Society Mosque, told the Guardian that he “barricaded” himself inside the building with eight worshipers after rioters attacked the mosque.
“It really was terrifying and it was uncalled for,” he told the newspaper.
Authorities blamed the English Defense League, an Islamophobic and violent street movement, and its former leader, Tommy Robinson, for being behind the riot.
On Wednesday, Labour leaders suggested they would examine whether the group should be outlawed, British media reported.
In social media statements, Robinson — whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — declared the English Defense League was disbanded long ago and that Islam should be banned instead.
In his posts, Robinson praised the rioters and said they reflected anger over safety, immigration and dishonesty displayed by politicians and the media.
“Basically if you riot they listen to you,” he said on Telegram, a social media platform, under a post showing video with hundreds of people confronting police in Southport.
The attacker was held on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. As of Wednesday, police had not revealed a possible motive.
Merseyside police said they were bracing for more rioting Wednesday night and that officers from nearby districts had been brought in.
About two dozen children, mostly girls, were attending a Taylor Swift-themed summer vacation workshop on Monday when the teen armed with a knife entered the studio and began a vicious attack, police said. Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, died from their injuries.
“Every single person in some way is connected with those three little girls who lost their lives,” Townes said. His daughter went to school with two of the victims, he said.
“Everyone in the whole town is feeling the tragedy of it,” he said. “It’s something that you would have never expected to happen in somewhere like here.”
Britain is struggling with a rise in knife crime with the latest example on Tuesday when a machete street fight erupted outside a theme park in the seaside town of Southend. Calls are growing for the government to crack down on bladed weapons.
Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergartners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The United Kingdom subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeauSubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.