The police and courts downplayed racist violence in the wake of the Southport killings treating it as ‘mindless thuggery’, according to a new report by the Institute of Race Relations warning such ‘obfuscation’ risks legitimising the far-right. The IRR commissioned criminologist Dr Jon Burnett to study responses to the summer 2024 riots over concerns that the violence was being treated as a public order matter (‘thuggery across the ideological spectrum’) to avoiding confronting the scale of violent racism. The report is critical of politicians pushing a false narrative of ‘two-tier justice’ favouring immigrants when in reality those defending themselves from violent racism were expected by the courts to have ‘risen above it’.
Disturbances broke out after the murder of three young girls in Southport, sparked by false information online that 17-year old Axel Rudakubana was an asylum seeker. The IRR study looks at a sample of 126 cases that went through the courts from August 2024 to December 2025 comprising more than two-thirds (67%) involving people charged in relation to anti-migrant protest and the remainder were Black and Minority Ethnic, mostly young Muslims, defendants countering the protests.
- You can read the report In racism’s echo chamber: the government and criminal justice system’s response to the summer 2024 riots.
In the foreword to the report, the IRR’s director Liz Fekete argues that the government set out on ‘a dangerous ideological project that decontextualised the riots, severing them from issues of structural discrimination and systemic racism’. ‘At the point of sentencing, some judges sought to minimise or dismiss defendants’ lived experience of racism, seeing their (re) actions as equally culpable and “incendiary”,’ she writes. ‘And prosecutorial decision-making seemed driven by a sentencing policy directed at BME communities to deter them against responding to racist provocations. With no end in sight to racial violence, such a “deterrent” approach could well have a powerful impact on communities which now find traditional avenues of protest closed to them.’
Dr Burnett argues that, though the riots were not solely caused by the far right, they were ‘exploited and manipulated’ by them. ‘The government has failed to take serious account of the causes and consequences of the riots, but, instead, linked the riots to violent disorder, ‘thuggery’ across the political spectrum,’ he argues. ‘Far too often, the context within which defendants responded to racist provocation and racist violence was not sufficiently understood in the courtroom.’
According to the academic, the violence was cheered on ‘both literally and metaphorically online’ by far-right or hard-right actors. Media reporting on the cases going through court shifted the discussion ‘from violence motivated by racism to mob violence against police officers, or just “mindless violence”’. ‘Yet, people, in their hundreds attended mobilisations outside asylum accommodation, with some ripping up paving slabs to throw through the windows, pouring flammable gases and liquids into corridors, and throwing petrol bombs inside – seemingly to burn the occupants alive,’ he continued.
‘The riots of 2024 marked the latest iteration of a long, if sporadic, history of racist violence in England and Northern Ireland. But what stood out from the past was, firstly, the sheer numbers of those involved (beyond those who instigated the violence) in a particular form of sustained viciousness, but, secondly, and crucially, their ‘geographical reach’.’
Dr Jon Burnett
Conveyor belt justice
The idea of a ‘two-tier justice’ narrative emerged in the press suggesting both that the justice system favoured immigrants and, secondly, that those charged were singled out due to their race and political views. ‘It was pushed by a range of political figures, including news corporations, media personalities and online influencers,’ the academic argued.
According to the report, defending communities was often not treated as a defence. ‘In court, for a variety of reasons, it appears the case for self-defence seldom was put forward, with defence lawyers, for the most part, seemingly advising their clients to plead guilty,’ it noted; adding that was ‘a sense of people on a conveyor belt to fast-track justice, advised to accept the “least-worst” option.’
In one case, a Muslim man in his 20s attended a counter-protest in Plymouth where he was subjected to missiles and ‘deeply offensive’ abuse. The defendant was charged with violent disorder. Sentencing him to 20-months imprisonment, the judge said he was ‘more than satisfied’ that what he did was because of provocation and, consequently, the sentence was slightly reduced. The report continues: ‘But what the defendant should have done, the judge said, was “simply rise above their obnoxious racism”.’ Another Muslim man in his 20s was given an 18-month prison sentence for violent disorder after linking arms with others to create a protective barrier around a hotel accommodating asylum seekers under attack. He threw two ‘missiles’ in the direction of the attackers. None of the items hit anyone.
Zrinka Bralo, CEO of Migrants Organise said its members ‘continue to live fear in hotels, while charities and community organisations can no longer safely publish their addresses because of threats and intimidation’. ‘Hostility is not a failure of the system – the system is hostile by design, and it is doing exactly what it is meant to do.’
Andrea Coomber KC,chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said that the ‘two-tier justice’ narrative is ‘particularly misleading’. ‘Instead, and as with the riots in 2011, both government and the courts prioritised a “one-size-fits-all” response of speedy prosecutions and punitive sentencing, an approach that swept up many vulnerable people from across different backgrounds – many of whom did not initiate the violence. Among other things, this helped exacerbate the prison capacity crisis that has dogged the government since the general election.’
