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/
This seems to be the UK's unite the right tikki torch moment.
Has anyone been killed yet? I know people have been beaten up and mosques burned down.
No reported deaths, no.
I don't remember the details of Charlottesville precisely other than the car ramming and general nazi chanting, but I think this one has a different profile. Unite The Right was a large organised protest, with partakers ranging from full blown Nazis to regular right wing 'beautiful boater' types.
The EDL really has a small active presence in comparison. These protests are hardly protests at all, they're more like violent mobs going out of their way to smash shit up. If you look at some of the footage, some of these gangs are of about 15 people who go out and attack the first Muslim guy they see who doesn't get out of their way. There's one video in Newcastle of a gang of entirely children doing it. (Under 16ish) There's another where they suddenly appear in a city centre and turf up a Muslim guys stall. They're violent gatherings more similar to football hooligan gangs of the 90s (with a lot of crossover, I imagine), than a truly political cause.
The closest thing they've had to an organised march was the big one in London with Tommy Robinson the other week against Palestine and trans marches, or the violent protest yesterday outside a (Rotherham?) immigration centre.
These EDL folks - for the most part it's not like they protested and then kettled by the police and then started lashing out, it's that they started throwing rocks and lynching people and then eventually dispersed or got pinned down and carried on fighting to the end. There's not much marching in a line, it's more like a horde. More of a pogrom than a protest.
So basically just roving gangs of violent young and middle aged thugs looking to beat up and harm anyone who the perceive to be Arab or Muslim?
Like they'd be burning these people to death Salem witches trials esque if they could get away with it?
Pretty much, yeah. There's a video where they run up on a guy's car and try to drag him out of, while people saying 'kill him' can be heard. They dragged him out of the car and beat him, but I think he got away in the end.
I saw some reports of a minor stabbing too but the algorithm is making it hard to find.
There's definitely some organisation to this too, although a lot of this seems to be whipped up through online racist chats etc. Patriotic Alternative who have been very active in the anti-refugee and anti-LGBTQ+ drag show 'protests' and violence have been involved in organising some of the bigger ones. There was a 'blood and honour' gig planned in Sunderland when it kicked off etc. From talking to comrades I get the sense that some of it is impromptu rioting from racist WhatsApp groups etc, but the bigger actions are more organised, even if they leave most of the rioting at night to the youths etc.
Really fucking lucky they don't have guns in any real quantity there