Full on roaming EDL gangs. Pretty insane stuff. This article doesn't do it justice. Most of the footage I've seen has been on Instagram.
The craziest part is they started in response to a misogynist terror attack in Southport. The suspect of the terror attack was Welsh born, with parents from Rwanda, and is most likely Christian. So naturally they started lynching Muslims.
EDIT: This next part is dubious.
Apparently before it all kicked off there was a russian clickfarm that posted a fake article calling the suspect 'Ali Muhammad' or some sort of very stereotypical islamic name, before all the real information had come out.
I mean, not that you can really blame it all on that. It was just a fuse waiting to be lit.
More accurately investigated here: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2024-08-02/did-russian-disinformation-fuel-the-southport-protests/
I lived in the UK for years. I went to oppose fascist marches many times. It was violent, like seriously fucking dangerous. I have been hurt. I hurt fash. I wore a fucking helmet and they threw rocks and bottles at us, my helmet was hit and fucking saved my life. After the marches the fash would break up into smaller groups to roam the streets and attack minorities. We did our best to protect people. I'm not saying this to look cool. Truth was I was scared out of my mind and I don't know if I can ever go back to that kind of thing. I'm saying it because I absolutely believe that what is going on now must be like that, but so much worse. That place has only gotten worse in the 4 years since I left.
This has been brewing for literal decades at this point. There was a contingent of anti-europe people in the conservative party, way back before brexit. they were a small voice calling for it. but even then, more subtly, they had been putting their fingers into the culture and brewing anti-immigrant, anti-muslim, and anti-EU sentiment. When this group got loud enough to threaten the integrity of the conservative party, Pigfucker David Cameron called the brexit referendum, expecting it to fail, as a way to shut up the rightwing of the party. But instead that proved to be the catalyst for the fascist sentiments in the UK to be brought into the mainstream. This was when the tactics I associate with fascism truly started to feel like they were integrated into british society. Facts stopped mattering to people. Hate crime went up. Hell I got violently attacked.
As far as I know, there was some russian influence on Brexit. I don't mean that russia caused this current situation - absolutely not, they only have the utter disaster of the past few decades to blame. They utterly failed to contain the rise of fascism. But I believe a nuanced and fact-based take is that Russia thought that Brexit would be politically useful to them, and used social media to support that. It probably would have happened anyway, the force from this didn't come from russia but from some scheming british fascists.
This has been waiting to happen for fucking years.
I also wanna say that I'm not saying the EU is a good thing. It's an inherently white supremacist institution "protecting" fortress europe against the desperate people at the borders. But the way british culture and politics work, and indeed this is true of a bunch of countries' far right, opposing EU membership was a predominantly fascist position, and considering everything that has happened in that hellhole of a country since brexit, i do think it would be better if it had never left.
edit: thank u to those who have thanked me for what i used to do. but i was just doing my job as a human being, among many others, resisting people who have forgotten their humanity. maybe one day i will be able to, or have to, do it again.
Thank you for your service.
Braver than any fuckin western troop
Thank you for your service
Removed by mod
This is revisionist. First off, Hexbear didn't exist when the whole Brexit debate was happening.
I don't really even remember any threads on Hexbear about Brexit. Mostly because we don't have a large contingent of UK users and Hexbear is mostly US focused (for better or worse).
Thirdly, I think many people who were aware of Brexit were at the very least, not enthusiastic about voting to stay in a undemocratic and neo liberal institution like the EU. Amber did an episode that had a lot of nuance that I'd have to re-listen to but I remember that it was mostly ambivalent. Not voting to leave, but not really enthusiastic about voting to stay.
Amber.
There were quite some people on reddit back then who did celebrated brexit as left wing triumph. I remember some struggle sessions.
I guess it seems it didn't changed much in the retrospection, fash would be empowered either way and both EU and UK would still jump headfirst into USA made vassalisation crisis regardless if UK was still in EU.
very rich coming from the UK after they brutally murdered millions of people in their colonial genocides and contributed a good chunk of the world's current immiseration
Isn't british culture pretty exceptionalist. "We british have been isolated on this island, we've developed into superior beings than the continental European, we don't need them"
By british they almost certainly mean only white englishmen, welshman and Scotsman etc.
Typically they just mean white englishmen and nobody else. Scot and Welsh attitudes are typically far more international and less supremacist.
There's something to be said about the lowland scots and imperialism In the 19th century, but it seems they've turned their back on that and become oppressed by the english themselves.
Wales also participated in the empire, not as much as lowland scots, but they did.
For sure, but attitudes have certainly changed since then.
On the map of where these riots happened, none of them were in Wales or Scotland. And only one was in NI.
yes, that is v true and accurate