A Tale of Two Riots: UK Government Accused of Double Standards Depending on Who is Behind Civil Unrest

SOUTHPORT, ENGLAND - JULY 30: Riot police hold back protesters near a burning police vehic
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Oliver JJ Lane

The newly installed British Home Secretary (interior minister) responded with fury to a riot following a mass stabbing of young children, but has been accused of double standards after other recent riots among different racial communities were apparently treated with more understanding.

The United Kingdom appears to again be tousling with that traditional brain-teaser, namely who is more dangerous to society: the knife people, or the people who are angry about the knife people.

Three young children were killed and ten others, including two adults who threw themselves in harm way to protect the young, in a knife attack in Southport, Merseyside on Monday. A 17-year-old male suspect, said to be of Rwandan heritage, remains in police custody.

Public disquiet over the slaying of children showed signs of breaking the surface early on Tuesday, with members of the public heckling the Prime Minister as he made a brief stop at the scene of the crime to lay flowers. As reported, some shouted “How many more children are going to die on our streets Prime Minister?”, “Are you going to stand up for our children?”, and he was mockingly accused of only having turned up for a photo-opportunity.

Anger turned into a riot on Tuesday evening as people clashed with police near to a Merseyside mosque. A police vehicle was burnt out and 27 police officers were sent to hospital for treatment for injuries sustained.

The British government has made clear its total disdain for the anti-child-slaying rioters, issuing strongly worded condemnations. But given Tuesday’s unrest came just days after other riots which seemed to merit a more equanimous from the Home Secretary, some have questioned whether an element of double-standards is at play depending on the ethnicity of rioters in the UK.

First among those pointing out this discrepancy was Lord Goldsmith, a senior Conservative and very much on the soft wing of the party, which may be perceived to make his intervention all the more impactful. Lord Goldsmith said Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s statement, which called the riot “disgraceful” and which promised “the full force of the law”, was “rightly” strongly worded but asserted the nakedly differentiated language is “extraordinarily shortsighted and unwise”.

Lord Goldsmith said on Tuesday night that the Home Secretary’s statement “couldn’t contrast more starkly with [previous] reactions to the Manchester riots where violent thugs demanded instant justice ‘or else’ & where Ministers bent over backwards to explain that they ‘understood’ the anger.”

He asked: “Why has the Home Office response to these two events been so different? Can they not see how this feeds the narrative of a two tier approach and drives people to the far right? It is extraordinarily shortsighted and unwise.”

The Manchester riots Goldsmith namechecked took place last week in response to a social media video of a man, identified as member of the Muslim community, at Manchester airport being kicked in the head by a police officer. The Home Secretary issued a statement at the time which went to some effort to express sympathy with the local community — some members of which had already been rioting by this point — and talking up “engagement… with local communities”.

Cooper said on the 25th in response to Manchester: “I share the deep concern surrounding the video and understand the widespread distress it will have caused… It is essential that the police have the trust of communities and the public rightly expect high standards from those in charge of keeping us safe.”

Interest in the Manchester airport ‘racist’ attack by a police officer waned after further security footage was leaked days after the event, appearing to show police officers had been attacked first.

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