Anti-immigration protests in the UK spread after mass stabbing incident where three children got killed.

 

Anti-immigration protesters in Sunderland England. CBS News/Getty.

Anti-immigration protests have continued after a mass stabbing incident where three children got killed. CBS News. The United Kingdom's new Prime Minster said that the protesters were "far right thugs" and said that they would be punished. The murders were committed by a 2nd generation 17 year old that had parents from Rwanda. The murders angered many British people and led to widespread protests against Islam and immigration. It is unclear how the British government will deal with the riots as the British justice system is already overwhelmed. 

My Comment:

It's absurd how biased the media is against these protesters. This is one of only a few articles that mentioned the reason why people are rioting in the first place. The horrific mass stabbing that left three little girls dead and a government that doesn't seem to care about it at all is the main reason people are rioting. 

Of course they are also tarring all the protesters and rioters as far-right. Though there are far right people protesting not all the protesters are. And even if they don't, it doesn't matter, the people are very angry about immigration and are sick of the government not doing anything about this. Remember, the UK has had a major crime wave, massive Muslim grooming gangs and several major terror attacks, it's not unreasonable to be wary of immigration in the UK. 

Does it matter that the attacker does not appear to be Muslim and is a 2nd generation citizen? Absolutely not. If immigration wasn't so out of control in the UK he wouldn't be in the country. And 2nd generation immigrants are often difficult to deal with and are often the ones that pull off these kind of attacks. 

The other elephant in the room is that there are large number of Muslim counter-protesters and they are even more violent than the English ones. There are videos all over social media of Muslim men beating up non-Muslims but somehow the media isn't covering this at all. 

Starmer made it clear he'd protect the Muslims no matter what, and now they're marching the street with weapons and attacking natives. pic.twitter.com/vvYoH4s3lg

— SL (@Steve_Laws_) August 3, 2024

I think that the anger is absolutely justified in the UK. I don't approve of rioting but what other choice to these people have? They have wanted less immigration for a generation now but it doesn't matter who they vote for. Both the Tories and Labor won't do a thing to stop immigration and I don't know what else British people can do. They certainly don't have firearms.  

So will these protests and riots change anything? I am not sure. The Yellow Vests movement largely failed but I also think that both the Canadian Trucker protests and the Black Lives Matter riots were at least somewhat successful. In the former the Covid restrictions were actually lifted and in the latter police really did get defunded. The fact that France has rioting as a national sport while riots are usually pretty rare in the United States and Canada might be the difference. From what I understand the UK is a lot more similar to the United States and Canada in that way where normal folks don't riot all that much. 

Regardless, I think that these riots will get a lot worse. Part of it is the total tone-deafness of the new Labor government under Keir Starmer. Instead of trying to calm things down and actually acknowledge that the protesters have a point, they have double down to the point where he's actively helping the Muslim counter-protesters. Starmer can't even pretend to care about the people he is supposed to be serving. To be fair, it's not like the Tories would be doing any better, they are just as all in on immigration as Labor is. 

The other factor is that the Muslims are also rioting and it seems pretty likely that both sides are going to be in open combat fairly soon. All it will take is for one side or the other to actually murder someone and the cycle of revenge starts. And then it's only a quick step to civil war. 

What could change things? I am not sure the crackdown on the protesters is going to do much but make things more angry. I major effort to calm down both the Muslims and the English might help, but I don't know how you calm down both groups at the same time. And given that it's likely there's a war between Iran and Israel before the end of the month (maybe the end of the week given how things are going) I don't think you calm down the Muslims down even if you through every single anti-immigrant protesters in jail...