Police in the northern English city of Rotherham struggled to hold back a group of far-right activists on Sunday, who broke into a hotel believed to be housing asylum seekers.

The disturbance is the latest in a series of violent protests by anti-immigration groups in British towns and cities this week after three girls were killed in a knife attack in Southport in northwest England on Monday.

Footage aired on British TV showed officers with shields targeted by a barrage of projectiles outside the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Rotherham, near Sheffield.

A few minutes later, the protesters can be seen storming the building and removing chairs from inside to use as weapons.

A small fire was also visible while windows in the hotel were smashed.

At least one officer was injured in the confrontation.

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Let’s see how convictions and incarceration times for these Nazis will compare to the ones handed down to the peaceful and objectively righteous Just Stop Oil protesters.

  • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The police have a lot to answer for here.

    During peaceful protests they are happy to storm in and arrest people for simply protesting, whereas people looking to destroy property and attack people are being greeted by half a dozen officers. Here in Bristol protestors were held back by a counter-protest, because there were THREE officers at the scene.

    Counter this with the riots that took place here after the police stormed a peaceful protest, and the police worked tirelessly to find anyone and everyone involved - in some cases rightly so. If the same effort isn’t placed here then something is fundamentally wrong.

  • sandbox@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    We are seeing the rising tide of fascism which is the inevitable consequence of (neo-)liberalism.

    The ruling elite control all of the wealth and power and starve public services of funding, meaning that working class people struggle to get their needs met, especially around health and education. Inflation and rising costs makes everything more expensive, while wages stagnate and workers rights are steadily eroded.

    This results in a large population of people, struggling financially, likely with low levels of education, who don’t see how they will have much of a future, looking for someone to blame.

    Since the ruling class control the media, they throw the disillusioned victims of the ruling class off the scent, choosing some vulnerable minority group as the scapegoat - jews, immigrants, whatever - to protect themselves against the threat of violence.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Don’t forget that immigrants have been convenient scapegoats since the dawn of civilization.

    • debil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Yes, one of the oldest tricks in the book is in use. Unfortunately it still seems to work.

    • Nurgus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      We have some lovely concentration camps in Rwanda, already paid for. I hear it’s totally safe over there. Maybe we could use them?

      • FelixCress@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        That is an excellent idea! And after making their time ask them politely if they would prefer to live in Russia since they like fascist regimes.

    • DMBFFF@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Wasn’t it Hitler that said “be brutal, close your eyes to pity”?

      ^((maybe something to repeat (perhaps preferably in German) while punching out a Nazi.)^)

  • nifty@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Funny how they take issue with powerless asylum seekers, while the politicians and pundits who convinced these idiots of the Brexit footgun don’t get any of their ire. In a way I understand why upper classes have contempt for the working classes, the working class often votes for things against its best interest.

    • sandbox@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The ruling class manipulate and control the working class. People don’t act against their own interests apropos of nothing, they’re tricked into it. The media is responsible for these riots.

      • Waveform@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It really does seem like it boils down to this every time. How can an aggressive propaganda campaign be counteracted without infinite resources, and without alienating people?

      • nifty@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        People need to held accountable for irresponsible rhetoric, but it’s not just that. The working class has always been willing to believe that it can uplift itself by acting as a thug arm of the upper class.

        You can go back in any time period in history and observe the same. I am not sure how much education helps resolve the inherent stupidity some people carry and cannot overcome.

        Educating people is useless, they need UBI or social welfare or something so they can keep living their dumb lives instead of being miserable and blaming it on others worse off than them.

        • FarceOfWill@infosec.pub
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          3 months ago

          He’s a hippie who likes talking to plants. There’s a quote from thatcher implying the problem with the royals is they’d be SDP voters.

          Sure they head the church and military but associating them with the right isn’t really accurate

  • danniel@feddit.uk
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    3 months ago

    Funny how all the videos I watched are of drug addict looking benefits receiving toothless thugs creating chaos. No you do not represent us. Trash and loot more buildings because if the taxes increase you lot have nothing to worry about. Us working people who don’t have time to riot and live pay check to pay check just barely scraping by to support our loved ones are the ones who suffer.

    • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      live paycheck to paycheck

      You saaaand loik a fackin immigrant nonce innit mate

    • ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      i saw the ppl. kinda the same as we see every summer in spain and so on. fat drunk fucks that act like imperialists, short chubby women super drunk…all pretending england won some titles in football. super cringe to the rest of europe.

      to me they look the same but i am sure there are ppl in london being different.

      take the euro soccer cup. in germany we celebrated the scots for their culture, humor and being nice ppl all over. made new partnerships with clubs and cities. albania and romania got lots of love because of the players and fans. that NEVER happens when ppl from england are around. anywhere. never.

      so i dont know your perception of what ppl think about ppl from england…but trust ne the majority in the EU thinks these rioters represent england very well.

    • sandbox@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Literally, yes, they do. The “day of the rope” is a big dream for these people.

  • andrewta@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Maybe I’ll missing something obvious, but the three girls that were hurt in a knife attack, were they immigrants or local girls?

    • drivepiler@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They were not just hurt, they were killed. The children were all locals as far as I know, the assailant was born in England to immigrant parents.

      • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        the assailant was born in England to immigrant parents.

        Excluding that fact is in and of itself is racism. If the assailant was white (even if coming from immigrant background), the British far-right would have looked the other way. But the assailant is British-horn and black; and the far-right lapped it up.

        I’m not trying to downplay the crime of the assailant; but this is one of those moments of “no, he’s one of us” and the response would have been mild if the perpetrator is white. But the assailant is a black British and people immediately went “immigrants are all bad!” The experience of many persons of colour living in majority white European countries is that they are seen as perpetual foreigners even if born and raised there.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        3 months ago

        Born in England? So they are native?

        Where their parents are born doesn’t matter.

    • roboto@feddit.org
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      3 months ago

      Yeah just to be sure to mention this DW is centre-right in Germany kinda like any other mass media here.