A year after anti-immigrant riots in Britain, many worry it could happen again

LONDON AP The killing of three girls at a summer dance class in England a year ago Tuesday by a teenager misidentified as a migrant triggered days of street violence directed at newcomers and minorities In the aftermath communities came together to clear up the physical damage but repairing the country s social fabric is harder Experts and public groups warn that the mix of anger fear misinformation and political agitating that fueled the violence remains In latest weeks it has bubbled over again on the streets of Epping near London Given a trigger event none of the conditions of what happened last year have gone away noted Sunder Katwala of British Future a think tank that looks at issues including integration and national identity He reported there is a tense and quite febrile atmosphere in a few parts of the country A solemn anniversary Three minutes of silence will be held Tuesday in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England where the stabbing attack left three girls under dead and eight children and two adults wounded Over the following days violence erupted in Southport and across England driven partly by online misinformation saying the attacker was a migrant who had arrived in the U K by small boat Because of British contempt of court and privacy laws leadership were initially slow to disclose the suspect s identity Axel Rudakubana a British-born -year-old obsessed with violence He later pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a life sentence In the week after the attack crowds in more than two dozen towns attacked hotels housing transients as well as mosques police stations and a library Specific rioters targeted non-white people and threw bricks and fireworks at police With a minimal days larger numbers of people took to the streets to reclaim their communities sweeping up broken glass and sending a message of welcome to newcomers Tinderbox Britain A year on the sight of settlers passing the English Channel in dinghies more than so far this year provides a focus for those concerned about the impact of immigration Those concerns are often amplified by online rumor scapegoating and misinformation particular of it deliberate Add a sluggish financial sector high housing costs frayed population services and widespread distrust in politicians and Britain in the view of a great number of commentators has become a tinderbox Nigel Farage leader of hard-right political party Change UK declared last week that the country is close to civil disobedience on a vast scale The left-of-center Labour ruling body agrees there is a dilemma At a Cabinet meeting last week Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner noted that of the places that saw the worst disorder last year were among the bulk deprived in the country She mentioned that Britain is a accomplished multi-ethnic multi-faith country but the administration must show it has a plan to address people s concerns and provide opportunities for everyone to flourish The ruling body has pledged to stop transients trying to reach Britain across the Channel and to end the practice of lodging asylum-seekers in hotels which have become flashpoints for tension Critics say the establishment risks legitimizing protesters who in plenty of cases are driven by intolerance and want to drive immigrants from their homes In Ballymena Northern Ireland last month rioters threw bricks bottles petrol bombs and fireworks and firebombed immigrants houses after two Romanian-speaking -year-old boys were charged with sexual assault Hundreds of people have protested this month outside a hotel housing asylum-seekers in Epping a town on the edge of London after a in recent weeks arrived migrant from Ethiopia was charged with sexual assault He denies the charge Scattered protests Protesters in Epping and a handful of other communities this summer have included local people but also members of organized far-right groups who hope to capitalize on discord Tiff Lynch who heads the Police Federation officers union wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the Epping disorder was a reminder of how little it takes for tensions to erupt and how ill-prepared we remain to deal with it Learning from last summer s violence where the police and courts responded rapidly to detain and charge hundreds of persons of interest police have charged more than a dozen people over violence in Epping A protest and antiracist counter-demonstration in the town on the weekend were peaceful The online realm is harder to police The British governing body like others around the world has struggled with how to stop toxic content on sites including X Under the ownership of self-styled free-speech champion Elon Musk X has gutted teams that once fought misinformation and restored the accounts of banned conspiracy theories and extremists The regime has cited the amount of time people spend alone online as a factor behind polarization and fraying social bonds Grounds for optimism Families of the three girls who died in Southport Alice da Silva Aguiar Elsie Dot Stancombe and -year-old Bebe King have called for quiet and respectful commemorations Local bureaucrats have inquired people not to lay flowers but to consider donating to causes set up in the victim s memories The gang behind Elsie s Story a children s charity set up by Stancombe s family posted on Instagram Our girls our town will not be remembered for the events of that day but for everything we are building together Katwala reported that despite a sense of disconnection and frustration at national politics and national institutions there are grounds for optimism Britain is less heated and less polarized than the United States by quite a long way he reported People s interpersonal trust remains quite high Seven out of people think their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well They re just worried about the state of the nation Source