Enquiries needed into the treatment of rioters and the narrative put up by the authorities during the August 2024 UK riots

Introduction

Friends around the world must wonder if the UK has lost its mind, what with the Southport murders, the ensuing riots, the false predictions of 100+ ‘far Right’ protests on August 7^th, the subsequent mass ‘counterprotests’, the praise heaped on ‘communities’ for standing up to this fictitious threat, and the subsequent repressive ‘justice’ dealt out to rioters. We haven’t lost our minds, at least the general public hasn’t, but the UK establishment did, as their value system threatened to collapse around them. That is why the UK establishment has insisted on draconian reprisals on those who had the temerity to interfere with their world view. That is not good enough, though, as we are meant to be equal before the law. Both the actions of the authorities and the narrative they have spun need to be subjected to detailed examination – but not by authorities themselves, and that is difficult, as they control the state, the government, the judiciary, the church and the police.

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1830 Swing riots

The cycle of recent events is reminiscent of the Swing riots that broke out in England in late 1830.[1] These widespread rural riots have been attributed to a combination of factors – no single one being decisive – leading to the impoverishment and marginalisation of agricultural workers. These were the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The riots spread along normal trade routes, by word-of-mouth, and had no central organization. The establishment put down the riots with the full force of the law. In doing so the establishment spun a narrative that an organized network of French spies were the instigators, attempting to import into England the revolution that had broken out in France in July 1830.[2] A fear of revolution and a threat to their wealth and privileged social status joined with a need to identify a cause of the riots that was nothing to do with themselves: it always plays well to have a specific and alien root cause to point at.

The riots took the form of attacks on threshing machines, arson against farm buildings and churches, and assaults of anyone seen as having contributed to the impoverishment.

Repression ensued, as recorded by Hobsbawm and Rudé, and meted out by Special Commissions and Quarter Sessions. The scale of the repression matched the degree to which the riots threatened the value system of the ruling establishment. 644 rioters were jailed – not dissimilar to the number just jailed here.[3]

The difference is that the process applied here in the present day is neither the normal one for severe offences in 1830 – trial by jury at Quarter Sessions – nor a special process commissioned by the Home Secretary.

The process has been akin to Petty Sessions, which dispensed summary justice.

Petty Sessions were held three times a week in King’s Lynn in the 1830s. The vast majority of cases were disposed of through the Petty Sessions track, possibly as many as 98% of all offences, with many not even reaching the Petty Sessions themselves and remaining unrecorded. Punishment of these unrecorded cases, based simply on arrest by the police, was corporal or custodial, the latter consisting of up to 72 hours in one of the several ‘cages’ around the town centre, open to the elements.

Cases that went as far as the Petty Sessions took only a few minutes and resulted in a mixture of corporal punishment, or a fine, or a longer imprisonment of weeks or a month or two, but not the type of punishment following a conviction at Quarter Sessions. These were from three months to several years in King’s Lynn prison, or the Swaffham or Walsingham bridewells, or in the hulks at Woolwich or Portsmouth awaiting transportation to Van Diemen’s Land or New South Wales, without actually going there. A sentence of transportation of seven or ten years usually did lead to going there, and finally there was the ultimate sanction: execution by hanging.

We should bear in mind this organizational model when the legal process around recent events in the UK is examined.

Who owns the UK’s streets?

Since the morning of Thursday 8^th August we know who owns the UK’s streets, and it is not the public as a whole, nor the police, nor supposed ‘communities’.

Ownership of the streets is in the hands of the Socialist Workers Party and gangs of armed anti-Semitic thugs. The unions representing the UK’s public sector workers appear to have been penetrated by Socialist Workers Party members and activists, and to have become mouthpieces for the credo of the gangs of anti-Semitic thugs.

Not only do we the public as a whole have confirmation that these groups own the streets, but they themselves have achieved explicit confirmation that they enjoy the support of the head of state, the government, the leader of the Church of England, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and many others in politics, law enforcement and mainstream media.

Peaceful or intimidating? ‘Communities’ or far-Left activists?

The ownership of the UK’s streets by these groups is not peaceful: it is threatening and intimidatory to all those they take into their heads to consider as being against them. It is an extension of the scope of intimidation meted out to the Jewish community after Hamas’ 7^th October terrorist attacks on Israel. No Dispersal Orders were made against these counter-protests, which continue to be given that name even though there was no protest.

These groups were unquestioningly identified by the BBC and the mainstream media generally as constituting the ‘communities’ who, supposedly spontaneously, rose to counter 100+ protests from the far Right, a threat we now know to have been non-existent but which was widely reported.[4]

Based on that threat, thousands of police were mobilized.[5] The country was put on red alert. Shops, businesses, universities, government closed early.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police announced on the evening of 7^th August that the police were going to deploy ‘overwhelming force’ against these protests and that police tactics had changed, they had ‘brigaded’ (what does that mean?) groups of officers around the country and so on.

This narrative must be challenged

The protests did not materialise on that scale.[6] However, the counter-protests did and on a larger scale than any of the protests up to that point. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police attempted to claim credit by attributing the non-materialization of the protests to his own policing operation and to the response of ‘communities’.[7] The government has doubled down on this line of argumentation.

It is now accepted as incontestable that the original reports were false. They had been relayed in part by the ‘Hope not Hate’ organisation as if they were true.[8] ‘Hope not Hate’ had previously circulated a false report that a Muslim woman had been the subject of an acid attack.[9]

The counter-protests were called and then appeared at the locations of the supposed protests with great speed, with pre-printed Socialist Workers Party banners in evidence. Is it credible that the respective ‘communities’ contain such a density of Socialist Workers Party members and activists, and that they were able to carry out their preparations for their counter-protests in the few hours available, including having their banners printed?

The working assumption is that a goodly proportion of these members and activists were bussed and trained in, in the way Starmer falsely alleged far-Right people had been bussed and trained into localities by the English Defence League to stoke up trouble. Far Right rioters now turn out to have been from the localities at which the misdeeds took place for which they have been charged.[10] Evidence of the orchestration of the riots by the ‘English Defence League’ remains sketchy. There seems to be equal evidence of rioters issuing from local places of entertainment having taken in alcohol and other substances, and getting stuck in on the spur of the moment without knowing what they were getting stuck in to.

Hoax? Malicious prankster? Or ‘false flag’ operation?

The report of 100+ planned protests has been called a hoax.[11] If it was, its instigator has not been identified. The instigator of the original false report that the murderer of three children in Southport was a Muslim asylum seeker has also not been identified. Nevertheless a woman from Chester was arrested and held in custody for relaying that information.[12] There is something intrinsically wrong, when viewed in the cool light of day, that a person can be punished for relaying something when its original instigator is unknown. It feels like charging someone with handling stolen goods where no report of a theft of those goods has been made.

One has to ask, given that the story of 100+ planned protests proved to be untrue, whether it was a deliberate hoax – by the far Right to stir up trouble, by a prankster of no political persuasion who wanted to create a wind-up (which appears to be the stock-in trade of the TikTok platform), by a foreign power, or by the far Left. The official narrative is that it was the first one. The second one is far from unlikely, though. The third case would replicate the narrative created by the establishment about the Swing riots, that they were instigated by a network of revolutionary French spies. The fourth case would count as a ‘false flag’ operation, mounted by the far Left to attribute plans to their opponent. The objectives would be to create a scare, to justify their taking to the streets themselves, and to cause authorities to rush to endorse their actions and unquestioningly.[13] If it was a ‘false flag’ operation, it has succeeded.

One should go back and re-examine the original false story of 100+ planned protests and its attribution to the far Right. Without knowing the provenance of the original story, the official narrative since it appeared should be treated with caution.

First steps – identify the instigator of the original false story, and then…

The very first step, though, is to identify the instigator of the false report on the Southport murderer. The elements in the official narrative after that report appeared and which need to be challenged are:

That the rioters were bussed and trained in from outside the localities where the riots occurred;
That the riots had a guiding hand behind them, which needs to be identified in terms of exact people and organizations. Just stating ‘EDL’ is not good enough when its existence on that scale and over such a broad geography is unproven.

Second step – an enquiry into Wednesday 7^th

This element needs to determine how many of the counter-protesters were bussed and trained in and when. The timing is critical: how long was it between the initial circulation of the reports of 100+ planned protests and when these people were on the move?

Were they on the move before or contemporaneously with the reports being recirculated via ‘Hope not Hate’?

What steps were taken by authorities to confirm the veracity of the reports before they mounted a major operation and constructed a narrative to justify it?

Who was involved in constructing the narrative after the protests did not take place, that it was the police response and ‘communities’ that had stopped any protests taking place? Are either of the narratives, put out before and after the protests did not take place, still held to be true?

Is there a case for incitement for ‘Hope not Hate’ to answer, as they have played a role in both what happened on 7^th August and in recirculating false reports of an acid attack?

Alternative narrative

Without an enquiry, a different narrative may emerge and be given credence: that it was the far Left that created the report of the planned protests and made sure it came to the attention of a known and tame alarm-spreader. They correctly reckoned with the government and the police swallowing the story hook, line and sinker, over-reacting, stoking up alarm, and amplifying the underlying narrative. The Socialist Workers Party’s members and activists, together with armed gangs of anti-Semitic thugs, then flooded the streets and posed, with a few people actually from the localities involved, as defenders of the community. The authorities gave them explicit and unconditional support.

Within that narrative the government and police come over as stupid and gullible, as having subscribed to a storyline prepared by the far Left, and as having doubled down on that storyline to cover their own incompetence.

Has justice been delivered to the rioters?

It is important that justice was delivered to the rioters if we all live equally under the rule of law. In this case a public narrative had been built about the nature and severity of the offences, before cases came to court. Officialdom acted with despatch to ensure that the wheels of ‘justice’ cranked around as quickly as possible to bring ‘the full force of the law’ to bear on the accused.

This was done without Orders-in-Council being issued,[14] and without the government being granted Emergency Powers.[15] The assumption is that normal laws were used, such as the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, it appearing to be integral to the conduct of the government and law enforcement that a series of ‘disorders’ or one overarching ‘disorder’ had occurred.[16] The recognition or declaration of a ‘disorder’ is then the trigger for the bringing-to-bear of the ’full force of the law’. The problem is that it is difficult to find such a trigger in Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Where is the trigger if it is not there?

Who decided, when and on what legal basis that these riots justified special measures against the rioters or, to use the phrase in vogue, to apply ‘the full force of the law’? Is there even such a thing as a ‘disorder’ that justifies special measures?

It has not been possible to have these or any other questions put to the Prime Minister across the Despatch Box in the House of Commons, because Parliament is in recess and the Prime Minister has resisted recalling it.

Prejudicing of the proceedings

Has it breached the rights of the accused that a hostile public narrative was created by those whose duty is to impartiality and/or non-interference in legal process? Any decent Human Rights lawyer should be able to construct a case that the fairness of the judicial process towards the accused has been compromised, noting though that such a case normally contends that a jury’s impartiality was prejudiced by stories about the case circulating widely in the media, to which the jury members were exposed. This contention can be side-stepped by the authorities in this case as the rioters were not accorded a trial by jury. Nevertheless it seems undeniable that the accused came before the courts in the context of an official narrative that reduced the likelihood of their acquittal.

Bail

Was it correct to have bail refused in all cases, when one compares these cases to how others accused of similar offences are treated? Does the context of an offence – that there was a ‘disorder’ in process – validly justify a different treatment? Who has the right to declare that the context existed? Did they and if they did, when? In bygone days the declaration would have been the reading of the Riot Act.[17] The Act had to be read out in front of the rioters at the time of the riot, not inferred to apply de post facto, and not read out in advance or put in a place or publication which the rioters might not have had access to. The Riot Act was only repealed in 1973. Is a Dispersal Order the successor to ‘reading the Riot Act’?[18] In what circumstances can one be issued in advance, or in expectation of trouble? Is this the trigger for an occurrence to be recategorized as a ‘disorder’? If it is, what is the equivalent of the process under the Riot Act of making all those present at the occurrence aware that the occurrence will be recategorized, and that severe penalties can then be invoked if those present do not comply and disperse?

Adherence to due process

Did the accused have the benefit of due legal process? They were not convicted through a trial by jury, and yet long sentences have been handed down. This is disconcerting when done without that check and balance. Were they made aware of their legal rights? Did they have access to legal representation? What was the timelag between their obtaining legal representation and their being brought before the court? How does that compare with the average timelag across the judicial system? Is the timelag regarded as adequate for the preparation of a case for the defence?

Evidence

What was the standard for the evidence behind a conviction, another crucial check and balance? Did the case need only to be proven in front of a judge, and was it the same judge that passed sentence? Did the evidence against the accused consist primarily of police body-cam footage and police statements, but of no physical evidence or testimony from other witnesses? This is the inference of the conviction of Gary Harkness: the evidence was ‘body-worn camera footage’ and that he was ‘said to have made lewd gestures and been heard swearing’.[19] Said by whom to have made lewd gestures? Heard by whom swearing?

If lewd gestures and swearing are enough to warrant a prison sentence, then 200,000 football supporters should be imprisoned every weekend. Were confessions from the accused relied upon as evidence? If so, when were they obtained and how? Was evidence brought that the due process had been gone through to communicate that an occurrence had been, or was to be, recategorized as a ‘disorder’, thereby invoking more severe penalties?

Sentencing

Adherence to sentencing guidelines – whose watchword is same sentence for the same offence – seems not to have figured prominently either, another check and balance, this one against inconsistent, over-lenient or draconian judges. Gary Harkness was sentenced to one year in prison. The judge acknowledged that he had not hit anyone, thrown anything, or spat at anyone. Harkness had been ‘a party to this disorder, and I have to sentence you on the basis, and you also know that anyone party to it has to receive a custodial sentence’. We are entitled to ask where the judge’s ‘I have to’ came from and why someone taking certain actions must know – and presumably should have known at the time – that they had ‘to receive a custodial sentence’. This comes back to the issue of whether an offence took place during a ‘disorder’ or not.

Draconian summary justice

It is disconcerting that such swift and draconian ‘justice’ has been meted out, without bail granted, without a jury or a trial, with limited sources of evidence, without adherence to sentencing guidelines, with the judge deciding on conviction and sentencing, and without clarity as to how a ‘disorder’ is declared that appears to supersede the normal judicial process.

The draconian approach has been echoed by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police issuing threats to prosecute far and wide.[20] This feels like an oppressive and repressive exercise in summary justice.

If we, the citizenry of the UK, are to accept that justice has been done, then we need to know who gave the orders for it to be meted out in this form, with numerous corners being cut. Defendants, presumably, retain their right of appeal against both conviction and sentence. It would surprising if some did not avail themselves of these rights once the dust has settled.

Conclusion

What has occurred has been draconian and repressive and, as the government has co-opted ‘communities’ into supporting this course of action, the government needs to answer to these same ‘communities’ as to the quality of justice dealt out to members of these ‘communities’ – because we should not delude ourselves, much as some might would wish to, that those who have been summarily dealt with were not at the time members of a ‘community’ and that they will be again upon their release from prison. They will be voters and UK citizens: we do not have transportation any longer, whereby a member of a ‘community’ can be removed from it for good. Everyone is a member of a ‘community’, just as everyone must enjoy equality before the law. The government must demonstrate that this has been done, not just represent through a narrative that it has been done. Obviously none of these enquiries can be conducted by the government itself, nor the judiciary nor the police: they have compromised their impartiality through their words and actions.

[1] For the writer’s The Open University MA in History, to back the dissertation ‘King’s Lynn and the ‘new police’, 1830-45′.

[2] https://www.britannica.com/event/July-Revolution accessed on 14 August 2024

[3] Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé, Captain Swing (London: Verso New Left Books, 2014) Appendix II ‘Summary of Repression: counties, courts, sentences’ pp. 308-9

[4] https://news.sky.com/story/intelligence-shows-further-protests-planned-in-coming-days-policing-minister-warns-13193034 accessed on 12 August 2024

[5] https://www.itv.com/watch/news/thousands-of-extra-police-on-duty-as-communities-brace-for-up-to-100-protests/mxwrfq5 accessed on 12 August 2024

[6] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/riots-uk-protests-today-london-liverpool-arrests-starmer-b2593699.html accessed on 12 August 2024

[7] https://news.sky.com/story/met-police-chief-says-fears-of-extreme-right-disorder-abated-after-show-of-unity-from-communities-13192996 accessed on 12 August 2024

[8] https://hopenothate.org.uk/2024/08/07/statement-hope-not-hate-are-monitoring-48-possible-locations-for-disturbances-today/ accessed on 13 August 2024

[9] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/hope-not-hate-boss-apologises-for-false-acid-attack-on-muslim-woman-tweet/ar-AA1oh1I7?ocid=ue03dhp accessed on 13 August 2024

[10] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/06/suspects-facing-riot-charges-are-mostly-locals/ accessed on 13 August 2024

https://modernity.news/2024/08/07/rioting-suspects-are-mostly-locals-contradicting-starmers-claim-they-were-bussed-in/ accessed on 13 August 2024

[11] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1933625/uk-riots-list-hoax accessed on 13 August 2024

[12] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/08/chester-woman-55-arrested-over-false-posts-about-southport-murders accessed on 13 August 2024

[13] https://www.tiktok.com/@gbnews/video/7400711787252845857 accessed on 13 August 2024

[14] https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/orders-in-council/ accessed on 14 August 2024