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/
Islamophobia has been stoked for a long time now, this was just waiting to happen. Every single party other than the greens were running on a stop the boats platform. Also, compare how British media reports on race riots as compared to peaceful marches against genocide.
I think that Brexit set this off. Not in that the sentiment wasn't there, but before brexit a lot of the agression towards immigrants and minorities were channeled towards the EU as an institution.
This is one of the most visible and obvious signs of a fascist society and system, even if current scapegoat disappear, the problems don't but instead of wondering what's really the cause and who and why lied to them about it, they just move to next scapegoat and continue.