Last Wednesday, businesses closed early and shops boarded up in anticipation of an outbreak of far-right violence in some parts of the country. Six thousand trained police officers were on standby to respond. In the end, it did not materialise on anything like the scale feared: relatively few agitators were dwarfed by huge crowds of anti-racist demonstrators sending a message that the far-right were not welcome in their communities.

That was a huge relief, but, as the prime minister warned on Friday, there is no room for complacency. With hindsight, the social media posts that claimed there would be action in many locations looked more like an attempt to instigate it than a sign of networked organisation. The prompt arrest of so many rioters in preceding days, with some already sentenced to long spells in prison, undoubtedly had a deterrent effect. But on Thursday and Friday nights, anti-immigration unrest continued in Belfast and the police remain on alert this weekend.

What we have seen so far remains on a much smaller scale than the England riots of 2011. But effort must now be devoted to understanding what drove this far-right hijacking of the killing of three young girls, propelled by misinformation about the identity of their attacker. Just 7% of the British public say they support the 2024 riots, but the targeting of mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers has revealed the........

© The Guardian