Description: How Britain's longstanding Islamophobia problem led to far-right riots

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As police battled far-right riots spreading across the country, more ugliness unfolded on Britain's streets on Saturday.

Violent clashes between anti-immigrant protesters and counter-protesters erupted in cities across Britain and Northern Ireland, with police officers injured after objects including bricks, chairs and bottles were thrown at them.

The far right has drawn criticism from MPs across the political spectrum following last week's chaos in London, Manchester, Southport, Hartlepool and Sunderland, where mosques and other Muslim religious buildings were targeted in many of them.

With more protests planned, experts warn that they are fueled by deep-rooted Islamophobia in some quarters.

What sparked the wave of unrest was the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside, on Monday.

(PA/Getty)

Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, 17, who was born in Cardiff and lived near Southport, was named as the suspect in the attack, but false claims circulated online that the suspect was Ali al-Shaqati, a Muslim asylum seeker who arrived in the UK by boat in 2023.

The Runnymede Trust, a think tank that studies racial equality and civil rights, warns that such violent racism has been simmering beneath the surface for a long time.

The spokesman said what was happening was a direct result of years of normalised racism and Islamophobia promoted by politicians and the British media.

There has been a surge in Islamophobic incidents and investigations in recent years. Religious hate crimes are at an all-time high, with Muslims the most targeted religious group, according to Home Office data.

There was a 9% increase in religious hate crimes in the year ending March 2023, where the religion of the victim was recorded, with two in five such crimes targeting Muslims.

Protesters in Blackpool after a knife attack in Southport on Monday (Michael Holmes/PA Wire)

But the authorities have been accused of doing nothing to address the surge. It was recently revealed that the previous Conservative government’s Anti-Muslim Hate Working Group (AMHWG) was suspended for more than four years from 2020 until the party’s general election defeat, despite repeated promises from civil servants and a rise in hate crime.

The new Labour government's strategy for tackling Islamophobia remains unclear, with Sir Keir Starmer facing criticism for failing to engage sufficiently with the Muslim community amid the turmoil there.

The Muslim Council of Britain wrote on X/Twitter: “@Keir_Starmer had no problem meeting @MuslimCouncil when he was an opposition MP.”

Now that he is in government, Muslims are being attacked, mosques are being targeted, and his government has no plans to meet with the largest Muslim body in Britain, what has changed?

The Independent recently revealed that Muslim political groups were subjected to racist abuse and violent threats during the general election, which led to reports being made to the police.

Far-right activists clash with police in Sunderland on Friday (Getty Images)

In March, British Muslims reported feeling too scared to leave their homes after dark. New figures from the London charity Islamophobia unit (IRU) show that the number of Islamophobic incidents has jumped by 365% since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

Activists say political discourse and dynamics also fuel anti-Islamic sentiment.

In response to the riots, Qari Asim, chairman of the National Advisory Council of Mosques and Imams, said Muslims across the country were deeply concerned and anxious about the planned riots by far-right groups across the country.

He said: These threats and violence are the inevitable and destructive result of Islamophobia, exacerbated by social media, parts of the mainstream media and some populist leaders.

Earlier this year, former Conservative MP Lee Anderson was expelled from the party after suggesting that London's Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, was controlled by Islamists.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (PA Wire)

Despite this, Mr Anderson has not apologised for his comments and has since moved to Reform UK, further reassuring most people in the country agree with him.

An independent review led by Professor Swaran Singh in 2012 found that anti-Muslim sentiment remained a problem within the Conservative Party, and an updated report in 2023 warned that while the party had made progress, it had been slow to implement some of Professor Singh's recommendations.

A report by the Labour Muslim Network (2020) highlighted ongoing Islamophobia among Muslim members and supporters, and several MPs, including Zara Sultana, have called for the party to launch an inquiry into the issue.

Some media outlets have been accused of promoting Islamophobia and endangering the safety of Muslims across the country in the process.

A 2021 report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), part of the Muslim Council of Britain, examined more than 10,000 articles and clips mentioning Muslims and Islam in the winter of 2018 and found that the vast majority (59%) of all articles associated Muslims with negative behaviour, with misrepresentations or generalisations about Muslims and terrorism being the most common topic across more than a third of all articles.

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