The Hidden Forces Behind the UK Race Riots
Posted on August 18th, 2024
By Kit Klarenberg Courtesy MintPress News
Aug 9, 2024
Ever since July 29, Britain has been plunged into crisis, with incendiary far-riot rights sending towns and cities across the country spiraling into states of emergency. Vast mobs of armed, angry thugs, motivated by racist, Islamophobic animus, have vandalized homes, property and places of worship, violently clashed with police, and targeted hotels housing refugees with arson attacks in apparent stabs at mass murder. Hundreds of arrests have been made, and counter-protesters have taken to the streets in profusion to counter the upsurge of hatred.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged those responsible will face the full force of the law” for their actions, and several perpetrators have already been sentenced to years in prison. Still, the situation remains gravely tense. Furthermore, in keeping with so many prior explosive, unanticipated episodes in modern British history, a vicious mainstream blame game has erupted, with ultimate responsibility for the upheaval being apportioned to a wide range of domestic and foreign actors and causes.
The unrest’s actual, and perhaps most apparent, sources have been mysteriously overlooked. For one, average Britons remain gripped by an ever-worsening economic cataclysm, in which the cost of essentials ever rises while living standards precipitously decline. The newly-elected Labour government has not only practically pledged to do nothing to alleviate the misery – by maintaining if not intensifying self-destructive austerity policies – but already exacerbated the dire situation significantly by slashing winter fuel payments, leaving millions facing life-threateningly freezing cold, without state support.
History shows that this milieu is invariably a fertile breeding ground for fascism to take root. With no mainstream alternative to the neoliberal status quo, desperate, disillusioned and dispossessed working-class Britons look to outsiders” and extremists like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson for salvation in ever-greater numbers. And their remedy, as always, is to blame migrants, refugees and the other” for all of society’s ills and their own personal deprivation rather than ruling elites.
Even more ominously, though, there are unambiguous indications the anti-Muslim fervor that has torn through Britain in August is being stirred up by unseen spectral actors in service of the Zionist entity’s ideological, political, and military interests.
‘Get Them Gone’
For all the flurry of claims and counter-claims about how and why the riots started, there is no dispute they ignited on July 29 following a savage knife attack at a children’s yoga and dance workshop. Three children were killed and eight others injured, with five still in critical condition. Two adults present were also severely harmed. News of the shocking event rapidly spread far and wide, promptly followed by wildly incorrect conjecture and disinformation about the suspect’s identity.
Within mere hours, a popular anti-lockdown account posted on ‘X’ that the attacker was named Ali al Shakati” – an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year…on an MI6 watch list.” While this false information was deleted within an hour, the damage was thoroughly done. Multiple far-right influencers instantly leaped upon these claims, adding further groundless, incriminating details of their own to the mix. Among them was Robinson – aka Stephen Yaxley Lennon – a notorious fascist activist of some standing.
He declared the Southport knife attacker was an alleged Muslim,” adding, They always target women.” The next day, an aggressive crowd gathered outside Southport Mosque, chanting Robinson’s name, along with the offensive Islamophobic slogan, Who the fuck is Allah?” – a common fixture at far-right demonstrations. Attendant law enforcement officers were attacked, objects were hurled at the mosque, and police vehicles were set on fire. This malign spark produced copycat events and incidents across Britain, leading us to where we are now.
Protesters attack a Holiday Inn Express beillived to be housing asylum-seekers in South Yorkshire, August 4, 2024. Photo | AP
In almost every instance, police were quick to identify the rioters as members of the English Defence League (EDL), a now-defunct far-right organization comprised of hardcore anti-Islam agitators and football hooligans. Robinson, the League’s former leader, rubbished these allegations via X on the grounds that there’s has [sic] been no EDL for over a decade.” Nonetheless, in a video published while the Southport riot was ongoing, he seemingly traced the violence back to the group he once headed and the streetfighting dogma it espoused:
Before people…condemn the ‘angry men’, that anger is justified. I’m surprised it’s took [sic] this long…you’ve actually encouraged the scenes you see tonight. You’ve done this, your government has done this, the police have done this…You care more for Afghanis, Somalis, Eritreans, Syrians, Pakistanis. They’re a danger to us. Stop the f***ing boats! Get them out of them [sic] hotels! Get them gone! Send them back! They shouldn’t be here ! Men will rise up, they were always going to rise up, they have to rise up, to defend their families!”
On August 8, intelligence-adjacent independent” outlet Byline Times published a lengthy probe into the real UK race riot instigators,” mapping the key players and Transatlantic network” around Robinson. It argued he may have instigated the recent British upheaval at the behest of a sinister nexus of wealthy far-right figures in Europe and North America, including wealthy Donald Trump supporter Patrick Michael Byrne. Markedly, not once were Israel or Zionists mentioned – far more plausible candidates for directing Robinson’s incitation to Islamophobic violence.
‘Foreign Pressure’
The EDL burst onto British streets in June 2009. Describing itself as a human rights organization” and touting the slogan not racist, not violent, just no longer silent,” Robinson and his confederates consistently claimed to be simply standing up for white working-class citizens and raising legitimate concerns about extremist Islam. However, the behavior and chants of its members on regular EDL marches through British towns and cities told a very different story.
Still, the League was ever-keen to flaunt its non-racist, diverse credentials. From its inception, the EDL had dedicated divisions for its Cypriot, Greek, Hindu, Jewish, LGBT and Pakistani Christian supporters and other minority groups present on marches besides. The League’s Jewish” wing was always the movement’s most visible, even if barely acknowledged by the mainstream media. The profusion of Israel flags routinely found in EDL protests also went largely unremarked upon during the group’s five-year existence.
Yet, indications that the EDL’s activities served quite another nation’s interests were always unambiguously hidden in plain sight. The League never operated as a charity or political party in Britain, but two separate commercial entities were registered under its name. In June 2011, Robinson’s compatriots launched a company, the English Defence League. A month later, this was updated to the English and Jewish Defence League. Meanwhile, a firm known as EDL English Defence League LTD was registered in December 2010.
Two years later, the company’s name became the Jewish Defence League and one of its directors, Roberta Moore, a belligerent Zionist, established links with Jewish Task Force, a far-right U.S. organization. Founded by Victor Vancier, it espouses a hardcore, fundamentalist Zionism. Despite raising money for illegal settlements in the West Bank and avowedly seeking to save” Israel, Vancier was banned from entering Tel Aviv for his involvement in 18 bombings in New York and Washington, protesting Soviet treatment of Jews during the 1980s.
This connection was reportedly too extreme” for EDL higherups, who subsequently distanced themselves from Moore and their Jewish” wing. However, this is difficult to rationalize with Robinson’s own views. In February 2019, a leaked video depicted the former League chief declaring his love for Israel and discussing how, on some occasions, he is forced to get [his] Zionist card out, which says that [he is] a Zionist.” The clip ended with him proudly declaring:
Palestine?! F*** Palestine. Why would you support Palestine? If there was a war tomorrow, which probably there would be, I would be there on the front line fighting for Israel”.
Five months later, Robinson was jailed for 13 months for contempt of court after he exposed the protected identities of accused sexual groomers while they were on trial in May the previous year. Once imprisoned, notorious hardline Zionist lobby think tank Middle East Forum announced it had not only helped fund his legal expenses but financed and organized 25,000-strong solidarity protests in his honor. An accompanying statement revealed:
MEF is helping Mr. Robinson in his moment of danger…[MEF] is aiding Mr. Robinson…diplomatically, by bringing foreign pressure on the UK government to ensure [his] safety and eventual release.
The statement was signed by MEF Director Gregg Roman, who previously worked in the Zionist entity’s Defence and foreign ministries. There are no prizes for guessing from which country the foreign pressure” to release Robinson emanated.
‘Going Undercover’
In the EDL, Robinson and Moore were not alone in having deep and cohering ties to Israel and a pronounced affinity for Zionism. One of the group’s key founders, Paul Ray,” whose blogging on race was cited in the manifesto of Norwegian Islamophobic mass murderer Anders Breivik, had a highly dubious history indeed as an infiltrator of Palestine solidarity movements in Britain. Whether he was a volunteer or state agent remains unclear today, but he evidently inflicted enormous damage on his targets.
In September 2006, Islamophobic U.S. website FrontPageMag published an exposeé” on how one of its British volunteers” had infiltrated the International Solidarity Movement’s London wing a year prior. ISM is a pro-Palestinian campaign group dedicated to nonviolent protests, with chapters around the world. It trains and dispatches volunteers to the Occupied Territories to assist with nonviolent protest activities. Despite this, in 2003, two ISM activists – Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall – were killed by Israeli Occupation Forces.
Investigative journalist Asa Winstanley, a veteran Palestine solidarity activist, has revealed that British intelligence has long penetrated ISM. Ray—real name Paul Cinato—was among the spies who infiltrated the Movement. As the FrontPageMag article reported, he had prior experience going undercover for the police in the UK” before targeting ISM. The outlet added, Photos and intelligence [Cinato] brought back are proving invaluable to intelligence agencies watching ISM and [are] in official hands.”
Again, there are few prizes for guessing the location of the intelligence agencies watching ISM” that benefited from Cinato’s activities. Other British spies who infiltrated the Movement very clearly passed what they learned on to Zionist entity authorities. By 2008, Tel Aviv had obtained such precise intelligence on the group that its volunteers were either deported after entering Israel or blocked from entering altogether. As ISM’s primary raison d’etre was to get people into the Occupied Territories, its value and impact were significantly curtailed.
Tmy Robinson poses with IDF troops during a visit to Israel. Photo | Twitter
It must not be forgotten either that the deranged Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was a core precept of the EDL during its five-year-long lifespan and remains promulgated by Robinson and Britain’s fascist rioters in the present day. This narrative posits that Western elites are covertly engaged in a dastardly connivance to flood Europe with Muslims and destroy local culture in service of creating Eurabia,” an Islamized mega-continent and caliphate.
The originator of this profoundly racist, fantastical drivel was Bat Ye’or” – the nom de plume of former Mossad operative Gisèle Littman. In 1961, she and her British husband David led Operation Mural, a sickening Zionist operation to kidnap Jewish children from Morocco to become settler colonists in Israel. She spent three months in Rabat posing as a Christian aid worker, gaining the trust of young targets to assist with their unwilling extraction.
The pair went on to be involved in a variety of Zionist organizations and leading lights in the Islamophobic Counterjihad movement. Despite their sordid personal and professional history being well-documented, Gisèle Littman’s obscenely hypocritical Great Replacement” theory quickly became popular with right-wingers in Europe and North America. As a 2019 Guardian long-read put it:
Once an obscure idea confined to the darker corners of the internet, the anti-Islam ideology is now visible in the everyday politics of the West.”
Littman’s theory” is just one way in which the Zionist entity has over decades normalized and legitimized everyday discrimination and xenophobia towards Muslims while dehumanizing and demonizing them in pursuit of its putrid, genocidal settler colonial project. Having insidiously poisoned Western information spaces with surging Islamophobic hatred via assets such as Tommy Robinson, it appears the pot is finally boiling over in Britain.
That there is a mainstream omerta on these fundamental truths indicates Europe and North America’s media and political class are determined to let the Zionist entity get away with it.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
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