Recent riots across several U.K. towns and cities following the killing of three children, Alice Aguiar (9), Bebe King (6) and Elsie Stancombe (7) and the injury of several others during a knife attack in Southport on July 29, makes one wonder how in a country which is known for changing its image as being multicultural and assimilating, such incidents happen.

Mainly, four reasons can be broadly identified for this un-English behaviour. Firstly, the spread of the rising right and far-right elements in the political discourse; secondly, an increase in Islamophobia; thirdly the increasing rate of unemployment due to Brexit and lastly the increasing menace of social media’s influence in today’s modern world.

The first three elements are changeable and interlinked in a political system, and so far, they were described as the main reason for incidents like this like the Leicester riots in 2022 or 2011, but it is the last reason, which apparently adds fuel to the fire for such unruly behaviours, not just in the UK, US, France but even in India.

Rising Islamophobia

In a statement Yasmine Ahmed, Director Human Rights Watch, UK said that it is understandable many people in the UK are angry and frustrated that their living standards continue to decline and that they feel neglected or forgotten as local facilities close, benefits are cut, and funding to services is slashed. This disillusionment is being exploited by often racist extremists, who pretend there are simple “answers” to complex problems

She further said that politicians like Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage, and their dangerous anti-migrant and Islamophobic rhetoric, undoubtedly share some responsibility for laying the groundwork for the violence which recently........

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