My thoughts on the recent UK Riots. Why do riots like this happen?

 

Young men have always tended to violence. Many physiological, psychological, and sociological reasons have been posited for this tendency. That, especially many younger men, are attracted to mob violence is a fact.

 

Why not all young men? Higher levels of education, good homes, responsible parenting, work opportunities, access to extracurricular activities, leisure centres etc., provide a wealth of time filling healthy activities.

 

Those deprived of some or all of the above, many of who also face financial hardship and social exclusion have little opportunity to avoid the pitfalls of boredom, marginalisation and feelings of low self-worth. Then these people are easily attracted to gangs, where gang mentality brings feelings of worth. Brawling with other gangs and general hooliganism gives feelings of power, esteem, worth and recognition within one’s own group. It’s a classic us versus them scenario.

 

The Teddy Boys of the 1950s, suffering from post-war depression, formed gangs, identifiable by their clothing and fashion. Some gangs then went on to have violent clashes with gangs in neighbouring areas. Then, bored with this, they moved on to unprovoked attacks on immigrants. In the 1958 Notting Hill Race Riots large numbers of Teddy Boys were present and implicated in the attacks on the West Indian community.

 

In the 1960s Mods & Rockers fought pitched battles with each other, mainly in seaside resorts. Again, how were Mods distinguishable from Rockers, by their uniforms and modes of transport. Mods were trendily dressed and rode motor scooters. Rockers wore leather and rode large motorbikes. That was the only difference between the groups, but that distinction enabled one group to see the other group as “the enemy” and therefore violently attack them. Along with these gang fights were property damage, looting, and attacks on the police, who were trying to protect the public and property.

 

Sadly, the Teddy Boys and Mods & Rocker disturbances were further inflamed by media “Moral Panic” and political rhetoric.

 

The Liverpool Toxteth riots, which I witnessed myself in 1981, resulted from a 50-year high in UK unemployment, with Toxteth having one of the highest unemployment levels in the country, a deprived, run-down area of Liverpool and an ongoing feud between the black community and the unnecessarily heavy-handed, poorly managed, possibly racist, Merseyside Police operations in the area.

After the riots, Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine was tasked with regenerating the area. He became known as the “Minister for Merseyside.” Today, Liverpool, including Toxteth, is a shining example of what urban regeneration can achieve. Liverpool Docks are now considered one of the most outstanding areas of beauty in the UK. Liverpool is now second only to London for tourism.

 

Moving on from the Mods & Rockers, football hooliganism took their place, with weekend pitched battles between the hooligan element of the fans. They were not genuine fans. These hooligans often travelled to any and all matches, just to fight, irrespective of the teams playing.

 

Although there were aspects of football hooliganism in the UK as early as the 1880s, these were always between local teams, as travel was unavailable to the majority. Football hooliganism, in its modern form, hit its peak in the 70s and 80s. Again, the wearing of football club colours, flags, banners and emblems showed who the “enemy” was so that each side knew who to attack.

 

According to writer and Catholic priest Fr. Richard Rohr, young boys need to be initiated into adulthood by being taught the five hard truths:

 

1 Life is hard

2 You are not that important

3 Your life is not about you

4 You are not in control

5 You are going to die.

 

What an idiotic set of things to teach a youth, believing that this will improve his chances of becoming a good member of society. A good depressed Catholic robot, maybe, but nothing else.

Surely something better could be along the lines of:

 

1 Life is a wonderful experience

2 You are an important part of this experience

3 You are an important person and can achieve many good things

4 Work with others to support and enrich everyone’s lives

5 Life is short, enjoy its wonderful variety and diversity, and be happy

 

As the Clinton campaign motto said, “It’s the Economy Stupid.”

 

Unemployment, especially amongst youth, correlates strongly with the propensity toward hooliganism.

And, a poor economy with financial hardship and social exclusion provides a breeding ground and powder keg for victimisation.

 

Young men, unable to come to grips with a complex world that does not live up to their own cultural, political, and social expectations, then latch onto some ideology, extremist interpretations of their religion, and/or misogyny to justify their violence.

Many people, unfortunately, tend to externalize their frustration and often quickly turn to reasons “out there” for why things haven’t worked out. So if you can’t find a date, it’s feminism’s fault. If you can’t find a job, it must be the immigrants.

 

These attitudes, unfortunately, are rife in social media today. Keyboard Warriors now spread their hate and malice on X (Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, Telegraph and other sites. Posts contain hatred and malice, supposedly backed up by information from other posts forwarded, often from “Influencers” or “Bad Actors” (government agents influencing a foreign country). Hate then spreads at light speed with a single post from a personal influencer being viewed thousands of times within minutes, then shared hundreds of thousands of times in an hour.

Keyboard Warriors share the same violent, hateful, and malicious characteristics as the outdoor thugs. They are two sides of the same coin.

 

What effect do the media and political behaviour have relating to these problems?

It’s the politics of blame avoidance – poor government performance and a weak economy creating a disgruntled populace – find someone else to lay the blame on. Not the politicians currently in power, anybody else. It has been and is still happening all around the world.

 

It is identical to how the Hitler Youth were encouraged to demonise Jews. A catastrophic post-WWI German economy, blame the Jews. Catastrophic Argentine economy full of corruption, divert public attention by invading the Falklands. The southern US states blame Mexican immigrants for their state’s poor economic performance and high levels of unemployment. Brexit. Boris Johnson claimed the EU free movement of “foreigners” would damage Britain’s economy, but the reverse has been true.

 

If people could not be identified by their colour, race or religion, these things could not happen. Because Jews in Hitler’s Nazi Germany could not be easily identified from none Jewish people, Goebbels instructed that they were forced to wear yellow stars on all their clothing in public. Without the stars, who could the Nazis persecute, they otherwise looked just like all other German citizens.

Teddy boys, Mods & Rockers, without their distinctive clothing, and football hooligans without their colours, would not know who to attack as their enemy.

 

When all else fails, identify your “enemy” and scapegoat, by their colour, race, religion, or nationality.

Then the UK gutter press (almost all right-wing leaning) fan the flames with headlines of anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic hatred, cheered on by unscrupulous politicians and quasi-politicians. Nigel Farage is, in my opinion, a fifth-column agent provocateur working to undermine UK and EU democracy and a supporter of Putin and Trump. He jumps in at every opportunity to sow discord, always in relation to his form of “real” nationalism.

Tommy Robinson, a convicted criminal, thug and rabble-rouser. Self-proclaimed leader of the UK anti-Islamic movement. Also, a onetime political advisor to the Independence Party, when Farage was their leader.

Tory front bench politicians - Suella Braverman, Lee Anderson, Kemi Badenoch, and Priti Patel stoking the flames and playing “Woke Wars” instead of managing the economy.

Elton Musk, also fanning the flames through his X (Twitter) platform. Why? To increase revenue on his site by generating throughput. Before he bought Twitter and rebranded it as X, Trump and Robinson were banned from the platform, Trump for inciting violence, and Robinson for promoting hateful content. As soon as Musk bought Twitter, he reinstated both.

I suspect that Musk may be positioning himself for a future presidential candidate. If Trump could do it, why can’t I?

 

Long overdue, at last, the government is introducing an additional part of the school curriculum to teach children about online extremist content and misinformation.

 

Tory politicians have been at the forefront of fourteen years of UK economic decline and political incompetence. Closed public facilities, tax the poor and reward the rich, a dearth of affordable housing, schools falling apart, NHS, trains, and water supplies all in crisis, violation of human rights, attacks on workers’ rights, and on and on.

They too have played the blame game focusing all their attention on immigration, to avoid facing the dire state of the UK economy that they have created.

 

A government focused on creating a robust economy, with excellent public services and high employment, is required. Not a government playing Woke Wars and engrossed in political infighting while the country flounders rudderless.

 

So we have the recent riots.

 

Setting fire to things because you don’t like foreigners or ethnic minorities is not OK. That’s called racism and arson. The perpetrators are not protestors. They’re the hooligans we have been discussing. Sadly, because of years of irresponsible newspaper reporting by the gutter press, and inept politicians, older people who should know better have become involved in the rioting. Judging by the ones convicted so far, many appear to have prior criminal records for violence.

 

Those, like the English Defence League (EDL) or its offshoots and hangers-on, have no policies, no arguments and no goals, other than the irrational idea of “taking back our country”. Bare-chested youths smashing shop windows and coming away with looted alcohol and tobacco are not making a political statement. They are just “rent a mob” hooligans.

Alcohol abuse has always been a factor in mob violence. Today, so-called “Recreational Drug Use” has added to this problem.

 

In 1968, thousands of ordinary working people marched in London in support of Enoch Powel after his despicable racist “Rivers of Blood” speech and follow-up TV appearance. I remember watching it with my parents as a young man.

 

Fifty-six years later, it was inspiring to see thousands of ordinary people from all walks of life taking to the streets to oppose the thugs, racists, and hooligans, who have no place in a modern progressive society.

 

Charles.

 

Research: The Article, WeDo, Wikipedia, Gov UK, Millennial Journal, Huk, Huffsports, House of Commons Library, Home Office Statistics, BBC, The Guardian.