British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, will hold an emergency meeting with police chiefs on Monday after days of violent anti-immigration protests intensified, with buildings and vehicles torched and hotels holding asylum seekers targeted.
The PM's responds came after days of violent protest and looting across the UK by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups.
Reports show how riots erupted across towns and cities in the past week, with 420 people arrested so far, after three girls were killed in a knife attack in Southport, Merseyside.
The anti-immigrant protests were reportedly fueled by misinformation that the suspected attacker was a radical Islamist who had just arrived in Britain.
But the UK Police have said the suspect was born in Britain and they are not treating it as a terrorist incident.
Home minister Yvette Cooper said rioters had felt "emboldened by this moment to stir up racial hatred", with bricks thrown at police officers, shops looted, and mosques and Asian-owned businesses attacked.
The police blamed online disinformation, amplified by high-profile figures for driving the violence.
One of them, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who reportedly led the anti-Islam English Defence League group, has been blamed by the media for spreading misinformation to his 875,000 followers on X.
"They are lying to you all," Yaxley-Lennon, who is known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, wrote. "Attempting to turn the nation against me. I need you; you are my voice."
Comments