More protesters have taken to the street on Saturday in the wake of a knife attack in Southport where three young girls were killed.
Protesters and counter-protesters have gathered in Leeds, Belfast, and Liverpool while enhanced policing powers have been put in place in Manchester and Bristol in anticipation of potential disorder.
Violent skirmishes have broken out in south Belfast.
On Friday evening, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had put 70 additional prosecutors on the rota for this weekend to support the police.
The protests on Saturday come as locals in Sunderland have been cleaning up the scenes of a violent disorder on Friday evening, which led to 10 arrests.
Britons have seen a week of unrest across England after three school girls, Bebe King, six; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven; and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, were killed on July 29 in a knife attack in Southport. Eight other children and two adults were injured in the attack.
Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, 17, who was born in Wales to Rwandan parents, has been charged with the murders of the three girls, 10 counts of attempted murder, and possession of a bladed article.
Before the authorities identified him, another individual with a Muslim name had been falsely identified as the suspect by social media users, who claimed he was a small boat asylum seeker.
The attack also coincided with another recent riot involving a minority community and the brief detention of anti-Islamic activist Tommy Robinson amid a court case in which he was accused of contempt of court.
Sunderland: 3 Police Injured, 10 Arrested
On Saturday, Mayor of the North East Kim McGuinness confirmed that a police station and cars had been set on fire and shops had been looted.Three police officers were injured as a direct result of the disorder, Northumbria Police Chief Superintendent Mark Hall said.
A fourth officer, a mounted rider, was also taken to hospital after sustaining “serious injuries in an accident,” he said.
Hall said a full investigation is now underway to identify those responsible, and those involved should expect “to be met with the full force of the law.”
He also condemned the “attempt to drive division amongst us” and said, “We are committed to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Lewis Atkinson, Labour MP for Sunderland Central, said that a link could be drawn between the disorder in his constituency on Friday and the ashes of the now-defunct English Defence League (EDL), which was founded by Tommy Robinson.
Police Braced for More Protests
Also on Friday, there was a protest outside a mosque in Kensington, which “ended without incident,” Merseyside Police said.More protests have been organised on social media over the weekend.
Hope Not Hate said it had identified 35 planned protests triggered by the Southport attack, although most of them are “more broadly focused, expressive of a wider hostility to multiculturalism, anti-Muslim, and anti-migrant prejudice, as well as a visceral streak of populist anti-Government sentiment.”
Counter-protests and separate pro-Gaza marches are also expected over the weekend.
In a statement issued on Friday, CPS said: “We stand ready to combat any criminality which arises from public disorder, and we will have an additional 70 experienced lawyers supporting police out-of-hours with charging advice this weekend to help maintain public safety.”
Greater Manchester Police imposed a Section 34 dispersal notice across Manchester City Centre for Saturday, meaning officers have extra powers to deal with anti-social behaviour in the designated areas.
Avon and Somerset Police have put in place enhanced stop and search powers and a Section 35 dispersal zone from midday on Saturday to 6 p.m. on Sunday in Bristol city centre.
Merseyside’s Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims said the force is “fully prepared to deal with anyone intent on causing disorder.”
On Saturday, the force introduced enhanced stop-and-search powers for parts of Liverpool.
Police Scotland said there has been no intelligence indicating violent protests are likely in Scotland, but it’s “closely monitoring” the situation.
Clashes on Saturday
As of Saturday afternoon, Police have sealed off a number of roads close to Queen’s University Belfast as a large number of protesters gathered in south Belfast, which had a number of bottles and missiles flying. Violent skirmishes have broken out between groups on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast.A line of police moved in to separate groups of demonstrators who met at the Pier Head in Liverpool.
A crowd, some with union flags, who had gathered outside the Mersey Ferry terminal shouting “stop the boats” were greeted by so-called anti-fascist protesters who marched from a rally at St George’s Hall.
Chants of “Tommy Robinson” were greeted by shouts of “Nazi scum, off our streets.”
Some cans were thrown from one group towards the other.
In Leeds, one of the protest groups left their pen en masse just before 1:30 p.m. and marched through the city centre.
Around 200 people walked past bemused Saturday shoppers chanting “stop the boats” and other slogans as they made their way through the Trinity Leeds shopping centre and up Briggate.
A line of police officers eventually arrived in vans near the Corn Exchange and walked in front of the protesters, some of whom were wearing masks.
When the march arrived back at the much larger pro-Palestine counter demo, large numbers of police placed themselves in front of the marchers, prompting some minor pushing, shoving, and screaming at the officers from the marchers.
The noisy stand-off then continued outside the central library and art gallery, with around 50 police between the two groups.
In Nottingham, protesters with St George’s and union flags have been met with counter-protesters chanting “racist scum off our streets” and “Nazis not welcome.”
Scuffles broke out as opposing groups faced each other on King Street at about 3 p.m., with bottles and other items thrown from both sides.
Chants of “England until I die” and “Tommy Robinson” were drowned out by boos from the counter-protesters.
Badenoch: Integration Needed
Following the violent disorders, politicians across the spectrum decried “the far right,” including Sunderland’s Mr. Atkinson.Labour mayor McGuinness praised the people of Sunderland for cleaning up the wreckage of the riot together, which she said showed “the true spirit of what we are as the North East and as Sunderland.”
Tory leadership contender and former home secretary Priti Patel demanded Parliament be recalled and criticised the government response, warning: “Saying the nation is ‘braced for disorder’ is not only breathtakingly complacent, but both troubling and inadequate.”
Another Tory leadership candidate, shadow housing secretary Kemi Badenoch, said the UK needs to end a “culture of silence” and have “a clearer strategy on integration.”
The recent events coincided with the detention and release of anti-Islamist activist Tommy Robinson last week hours after he played his film “Silenced,” which was banned for containing claims that the High Court previously ruled to be libellous, to a crowd of thousands during a largely peaceful, and amid a separate contempt of court case centred around the film.
