A year ago today, misinformation about the murder of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport – Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King, and Elsie Dot Stancombe – helped set off the worst British riots in years.
False rumours on social media that the killer was a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived on a small boat sparked a wave of anti-immigration violence across England and Northern Ireland.
In Southport, a mosque was attacked, while in Tamworth, rioters tried to set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers.
Riot police hold back protesters on 30 July last year after disorder broke out following the stabbings in Southport the day before (Photo: Chris Furlong/Getty)Now, with protests bubbling in Essex and Norfolk over asylum hotels, there are fears that Britain could soon see a replay of last year’s ugly scenes.
To stave off future riots, Sir Keir Starmer’s Government is promising action on a range of fronts, from boosting investment in deprived communities to slashing net migration and ending the use of asylum hotels.
But social cohesion specialists warn that action has been too slow and that Britain remains a “powder keg” of tensions.
The work in Government to prevent fresh unrest is being led by the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner.
Addressing Starmer’s Cabinet last week, Rayner described a toxic cocktail which she said had undermined social cohesion in the UK.
“Economic insecurity, the rapid pace of de-industrialisation, immigration and the impacts on local communities and public services, technological change and the amount of time people were spending online” as well as “declining trust in institutions” were all having a “profound impact on society”, she said.
A “read-out” from the Cabinet meeting added that Rayner had told her fellow ministers that it was “incumbent on the Government to acknowledge the real concerns people have and to deliver improvements to people’s lives”.
Rayner and others argue that previous governments have neglected social cohesion.
A key plank of the response to those perceived shortcomings is to increase investment in deprived communities. “One of the most effective ways to respond to the frustrations that fester is by improving people’s lives, and the places in which they live,” a Government spokesman told The i Paper.
The towns where Labour wants to improve lives
Rayner has launched a “Plan for Neighbourhoods”, for which £1.5bn will be invested across 75 towns to give people “real improvements they can see on their doorsteps and in their communities”. Downing Street has said that investing in the “most deprived areas” will “restore pride in people’s local areas and improve people’s lives”. A number of the places receiving funding – including Barnsley, Rotherham and Darlington – experienced disorder last year.
The 75 towns named as part of Rayner’s plan (see map and box below) will receive up to £20m each to “fund interventions including community cohesion, regeneration and improving the public realm”. They are:
They are the first tranche from a wider group of 350, so far largely unnamed communities, which will receive millions to “fund interventions including community cohesion, regeneration and improving the public realm”, as outlined in June’s Spending Review
A separate pot of money – the £15m ‘Community Recovery Fund’ – was set aside last year for communities that had been particularly impacted by the violence.
For example in Rotherham – where a Holiday Inn Express housing asylum seekers in the Manvers area was besieged by rioters – three voluntary groups have received £300,000 aimed at rebuilding community trust.
Voluntary Action Rotherham received £287,000 to deliver a series of initiatives including a small grants programme for local groups, while the local Refugee Council got £35,831 to run an education and awareness project focused on schools and the Manvers Residents Association received £10,000 to organise neighbourhood events aimed at restoring civic pride.
Ed Hodgson, associate director of the More in Common think-tank – which regularly carries out polling and focus groups on the theme of cohesion – said that “reinvigorating town centres” and “reinvesting in Britain’s social life” was a sensible place to start.
“When you ask people what makes them think their town centres are neglected, the top thing that comes up is empty shops,” he said. “That reinforces crime and things – a sense of places where you can’t go and connect to others.”
Rayner’s strategy is not just about more money for decayed high streets. The flipside is seeking to address some of the grievances about immigration which lay behind the unrest in 2024.
Hodgson said some people working on social cohesion had been squeamish about the issue in the past.
“A lot of the time, the social cohesion sector has sort of wanted to say there’s no problem there,” he said.
“By ignoring the issue, you’re only going to make it worse. It’s not novel to say, but the asylum hotel policy has actually been a disaster for integration.”
The Government has not been shying away from talking about the impact of immigration on social cohesion in recent days. As well as Rayner explicitly mentioning it in her Cabinet comments, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman backed up the message this week. Asked by The i Paper what the Government was doing to address cohesion, he pointed to the “extensive plans in the Immigration White Paper to address people’s concerns in relation to migration and to bring those numbers down as well”.
‘Government plan not ready for riots anniversary’
But despite the starkness of ministers’ pronouncements and the many promises of action, some experts think the Government has been sluggish in responding to the riots.
Earlier this month, two integration charities – British Future and the Belong Network – published a report warning of a “powder keg” of unresolved tensions and grievances that risked being reignited.
Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future, told The i Paper there was “quite a choppy mood” in the country and that “not a great deal has changed in the last year”.
While the Government had been “beavering away” on its social cohesion strategy, progress had been slow and the plan was “not ready for this anniversary of the riots”, he said.
Katwala said a strategy was essential because the roots of the riots were not “monocausal”. The Government needed an overarching plan on how to improve cohesion rather than continuing the previous pattern of proceeding in fits and starts when disturbances flared up.
He said the other key elements to prevent more riots were “visible deterrence of disorder” and action online.
On the former, Government sources believe that the protests which have occurred so far this summer in places like Epping have been successfully contained and managed by local police forces.
Police officers block a man wearing a Union jack flag during a demonstration outside the Bell Hotel on 20 July in Epping (Photo: Carl Court/Getty)Katwala said: “The police did very well in Epping, particularly on Sunday, where they just had a very robust and clear approach of what was definitely legitimate and lawful.”
While the police have facilitated peaceful demonstrations by people opposed to the hotel and counter-protesters, Katwala said that measures such as outlawing the wearing of masks had proved effective in discouraging violence.
“I think the police can contain this,” he said.
So far, the Home Office has also held the line by refusing to relocate migrants from hotels hit by demonstrations. The department has also indicated that it has no plans for curfews for hotel residents – a measure previously used when an asylum hotel in Knowsley was hit by riots in 2023.
Katwala said that refusing to immediately relocate the asylum seekers sent a message to far-right groups wanting to drive people out via “threat and intimidation”. But he added: “It might be very sensible to close that Epping hotel at some point in some weeks to come if you’re closing a dozen hotels, but I’m not sure it’s a great idea to close it in the moment [of protests].”
More worryingly, Katwala said that the “online dynamics” fuelling anti-immigration radicalism was one of the areas where the “least has been done” in the last year.
“You’ve got a tinder-box of social media, so any actual event or any rumour has risks of being amplified,” he said.
While arrests and convictions of people promoting violence on social media had curtailed incitement during last year’s riots, “the level of impunity online has risen again”.
As an example, he pointed to multiple posts from one of those jailed last year for stirring up racial hatred, which can still be viewed on the social media platform where they were made.
Social media platforms not dealing with ‘tinder-box’ of hatred
“The platforms have got no interest in doing it [tackling inflammatory content], no capacity in doing it, feel under no pressure, and so without regulatory intervention, you won’t deal with that tinder-box,” Katwala said.
He added that while he believed Britain was “less polarised” than countries like America and France in the “real world”, there was still a “febrile, radicalised atmosphere online” in which a small group of individuals pushed false but damaging narratives that the country is “on the brink of civil war”.
But “there were a lot more people watching the Lionesses than were planning for civil war on Sunday night” he pointed out.
A Government spokesman told The i Paper: “The disorder that affected communities across the UK following the Southport tragedy highlighted the need for a new approach to community cohesion.
“It’s clear that central government has lacked strategic focus on social cohesion for many years, which is why this Government is working to develop a longer-term strategy to tackle divisions in our communities and build common ground.”
Full list of 75 towns receiving millions in grants
The 75 towns named as part of Rayner’s plan will receive up to £20m each to “fund interventions including community cohesion, regeneration and improving the public realm”. They are: Accrington, Arbroath, Ashton-under-Lyne, Barnsley, Barry, Bedworth, Bexhill-on-Sea, Bilston (Wolverhampton), Blyth (Northumberland), Boston, Burnley, Canvey Island, Carlton, Castleford, Chadderton, Chesterfield, Clacton-on-Sea, Clifton (Nottingham), Clydebank, Coatbridge, Coleraine, Cwmbrân, Darlaston, Darlington, Darwen, Derry/Londonderry, Dewsbury, Doncaster, Dudley, Dumfries, Eastbourne, Elgin, Eston, Farnworth, Great Yarmouth, Greenock, Grimsby, Harlow, Hartlepool, Hastings, Heywood, Irvine, Jarrow, Keighley, Kilmarnock, King’s Lynn, Kirkby, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Leigh, Mansfield, Merthyr Tydfil, Nelson, Newark-on-Trent, Newton-le-Willows, Kirkwall (Orkney Islands), Peterhead, Ramsgate, Rawtenstall, Rhyl, Rotherham, Royal Sutton Coldfield, Runcorn, Ryde, Scarborough, Scunthorpe, Skegness, Smethwick, Spalding, Spennymoor, Thetford, Torquay, Washington, Wisbech, Worksop and Wrexham.
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