Riots and racism: why is the UK burning?

Fires burn as protesters stand off with police in Glengormley, north of Belfast. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Fires burn as protesters stand off with police in Glengormley, north of Belfast. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images Riots and racism: why is the UK burning? Claims of two-tier policing and uncontrolled immigration may not be borne out by the facts, but that has not stopped them being played up for political ends As the people of Glengormley, on the northern edge of Belfast, tidied up and prepared for more violence in the midst of what has been described as a modern-day pogrom, a court 500 miles away in Southampton , on the south coast of England, started to deal with its own outbreak of thuggery. The trigger for this week’s riots in the Northern Irish capital had been the image of a black assailant who appeared to be stabbing and slashing his supine white victim in the face and neck while shouting in Arabic. The suspect was later revealed to be a refugee from Sudan. In Southampton, the courts were dealing with the aftermath of separate violent demonstrations. The prosecutor Siobhan Linsley told a hearing that 1,000 people had massed outside the city’s central police station on 2 June. They had gathered after the release of police bodycam footage showing the last moments of Henry Nowak, a white 18-year-old student erroneously arrested and handcuffed over false racism claims while dying from stab wounds inflicted on him by Vickrum Digwa, a British Sikh. Digwa, 23, who had made the false racism allegations, had just been jailed for murder. A quarter of those who gathered outside the police station in Southampton over the Nowak case appeared to be drinking alcohol, Linsley told the court, and masks were worn. One speaker had shouted out: “Do you want the house, the Digwa house?” the court heard. Hundreds of protesters then moved towards an incorrect address for the Digwa family in the St Denys area. Protesters threw bricks, chairs and bins at police. People streamed through gardens and driveways. A trapped group of officers were “surrounded by a baying mob throwing projectiles” and a police car was attacked. The disorder lasted for about two and a half hours, with police “coming under almost constant assaults”. View image in fullscreen A person attempts to calm the crowd as police officers are attacked by demonstrators in Southampton. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images The demonstrators were said to have come from near and far and included members of far-right groups calling themselves the Southampton Patriots, White Vanguard and the Portsmouth branch of the National Rebirth Party. Taylor Grundy. Photograph: Hampshire Constabulary/PA The fancy names struck a somewhat pitiful note as the court dealt with a number of those offering guilty pleas. Taylor Grundy, 22, who had pushed a commercial bin on fire at officers and thrown a plank of wood, cried throughout the hearing. He was sentenced