Uncategorized – Bristol Social Harm and Crime Research Group

In the summer of 2024, England witnessed an alarming surge in far-right violence. Between 30^th July and 5^th August 2024, riots erupted across multiple cities following a tragic mass stabbing in Southport. Fuelled by misinformation falsely claiming the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker, the unrest spiralled into one of the most significant outbreaks of racist violence since 2011.

At the forefront of the response was Alex Ardalan-Raikes MBE, Director of Stand Against Racism & Inequality (SARI), a Bristol-based charity that supports victims of hate crimes. With over three decades in anti-racism advocacy, Alex has been instrumental in tackling hate crime, offering support, and pushing for policy changes to counteract extremism.

This blog post summarises a conversation between Alex and Nasrul Ismail, co-editor of the Justice, Power and Resistance journal, about the challenges, strategies and lessons that can be drawn from this critical moment in her advocacy against hate. Explore further details of their conversation here.

How did we get here?

The rise of far-right extremism in the UK is not an isolated phenomenon. Globally, we have seen the resurgence of nationalist ideologies, often amplified by social media and political rhetoric. In the UK, far-right networks have evolved from football hooliganism and street-level aggression to organised movements with broader social and political influence.

While racial tensions have long existed, the 2024 riots marked a turning point. What made them unique was their scale, coordination and the way misinformation played a direct role in inciting violence. In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, false narratives spread quickly, shaping public sentiment and fuelling hate-driven action.

Social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), played a significant role in the escalation. Elon Musk’s involvement in reshaping the platform led to a rise in unchecked misinformation, providing far-right groups with a wider reach to spread their false narratives. The lack of effective moderation allowed dangerous rhetoric to thrive, directly impacting real-world violence.

The human impact

The riots left a deep scar on affected communities. For many, the fear was overwhelming. Families were afraid to leave their homes, businesses in diverse neighbourhoods were forced to close, and targeted attacks on minority communities surged. Some individuals, particularly those from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, expressed disbelief that such large-scale racial violence could still happen in the UK today.

SARI received an influx of calls from frightened community members, highlighting the real-world consequences of digital misinformation. The power of social media to spread racist rhetoric became evident, with harmful narratives seeping into mainstream discourse.

The response: Community and law enforcement

Despite the trauma, the response from communities was inspiring. Thousands gathered in peaceful counter-protests, determined to show solidarity against hate. Across cities, diverse groups – White British citizens, minority communities, activists and local organisations – stood together to reclaim public spaces from violence and division.

Law enforcement played a crucial role in managing the situation. In Bristol, Avon and Somerset Police demonstrated a proactive approach by working alongside community leaders rather than against them. This collaborative strategy ensured a measured response, preventing the situation from escalating further.

However, law enforcement alone is not a solution. While swift arrests and prosecutions sent a strong message, long-term strategies are necessary to address the root causes of extremist behaviour.

The way forward

The riots underscored the urgent need for systemic change. Here are three key areas for action:

Stronger hate crime prevention strategies – Hate crime services should receive the same level of priority as domestic violence services. A statutory duty must be placed on local authorities to ensure adequate funding and resources for organisations like SARI that provide frontline support and education.
Tackling online radicalisation – Social media platforms played a pivotal role in fuelling these riots. Misinformation and extremist rhetoric spread rapidly, underscoring the need for stronger online regulations. The forthcoming Online Safety Act must address the amplification of hate speech and provide effective countermeasures to tackle digital extremism. Additionally, platforms like X must be held accountable for their role in enabling hate speech and conspiracy theories to flourish unchecked.
Long-term rehabilitation and education – While legal consequences for rioters are necessary, punishment alone does not dismantle deeply rooted extremist beliefs. Multi-agency intervention is crucial – bringing together social services, education and rehabilitation programmes to work with individuals who engage in hate-driven violence.

A call for collective action

These riots should serve as a wake-up call. The rise of far-right extremism is not an abstract issue. It has real consequences for communities, individuals and the fabric of society. Addressing it requires a multi-pronged approach: stronger legal frameworks, better online monitoring and most importantly, grassroots efforts that promote inclusivity and counter hateful ideologies.

At a time when division is being deliberately sown, standing together is the strongest statement we can make. Organisations like SARI continue to play a crucial role in ensuring that hate does not go unchallenged. But the responsibility does not rest solely with activists. Governments, social media platforms and every individual must play a part in building a society that rejects hate and embraces unity.

Alex Ardalan-Raikes MBE serves as the Director of Stand Against Racism & Inequality (SARI), a Bristol-based charity dedicated to supporting victims of hate within the local community and beyond. Under her leadership, SARI assists over 900 victims of hate crimes annually. The organisation also delivers training, restorative justice programmes, youth offender rehabilitation initiatives, and expert consultancy on equality and antiracism strategies.

Nasrul Ismail is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Bristol and Co-Editor of the journal Justice, Power and Resistance. His primary research interests are the governance and delivery of prison health. He is currently a principal investigator for a British Academy–funded project that is evaluating the degree to which Southeast Asia prisons are prepared in the event of future pandemics.

This article is republished from Transforming Society under a Creative Commons license.

By Professor Aisha K. Gill*

A decade-old scandal involving the grooming, trafficking and abuse of young girls has gained renewed media attention following incendiary comments from US-based tech billionaire Elon Musk.

In 2014, a report by Professor Alexis Jay estimated that 1,400 girls had been sexually exploited in Rotherham, Rochdale and Oldham by gangs of mostly Pakistani men. Ostensibly fearing accusations of racism, authorities hesitated to address the ethnic dimension of the crimes. At the same time, local officials deemed the abuse to be consensual sexual activity, consequently leaving women and girls with no support. In 2022, Jay, as chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA), released a subsequent report drawing on the experiences of 7,300 victims and survivors and offering twenty recommendations for reforms to tackle child sexual abuse. These are yet to be implemented.

In a series of recent posts on X, Musk accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to address these crimes during his tenure as the UK’s top prosecutor, labelling him “complicit in the rape of Britain” and called for his resignation. He also accused UK Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips of being a “rape genocide apologist” and called for her imprisonment – following statements from Phillips, along with Professor Jay, that a government inquiry into these cases is unnecessary and would only delay action being taken to help victims and survivors.

Musk’s thinking and language is consistent with a broader political narrative pushed by the far right in the UK: that Britain, and particularly white girls, need ‘saving’ from Muslim men, and that white men must be their saviours. In misogynist and Islamophobic terms, he is ascribing blame to individuals rather than addressing the underlying systemic failures that have contributed to the endemic problem of child sexual abuse in the UK. By shifting the focus away from victims and the institutions that let them down, Musk’s inflammatory rhetoric does little more than incite division and hatred.

The portrayal of victims

I have researched press reports of the grooming scandal and of UK child sexual abuse cases over the last decade, including in Rochdale. My work reveals that while the media often adopted a sympathetic attitude towards the victims, the statutory agencies involved in these cases did not. In the Rochdale case, many of the professionals who worked with young victims viewed them as having made “lifestyle choices” (Syal, 2013) by freely engaging in sexual activity involving Pakistani men; some labelled the girls, including those as young as 12, “prostitutes”. quoted Survivor Caitlin Spencer (a pseudonym) faced intense interrogation from the police following her disclosure and was refused their protection. Quoted in The Mail Online (Boyle, 2017) she revealed, “For that reason, I never took it further. The police told my mother that I was a known prostitute and to leave me to it, that I’d stop when I was ready”. Caitlin’s experience highlights how those being exploited were viewed by authorities and suggests strongly that class prejudice within the police, rather than ‘political correctness’, lay behind their failure to investigate the offences. It also emphasises the influence of patriarchal conceptions of gender that are evident in Musk’s commentary. Class status for women (and girls) is often mediated through moral demarcations that emphasise respectable sexual behaviour and gender presentation. A woman’s failure to maintain classed and gendered sexual standards often results in her being labelled a “slut” (or, in this case, a “prostitute”).

The media’s sympathetic portrayal of victims was also a double-edged sword. In reporting on the Rochdale cases, its ‘sympathy’ for white victims was balanced by an equal and opposite demonisation of the perpetrators on racialised grounds. By focussing on perpetrators’ ethnic identity as a rationale for the abuse, reports cast South Asian men as dangerous sex offenders and positioned the British state as a reformed patriarchy seeking to rescue and protect white women and girls from deviant and abusive minority ethnic men. The dangers of this are numerous, with the over-identification of South Asian men as sexual predators directly linked to a surge in far-right, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant discourse.

Musk’s commentary encapsulates this tendency perfectly. His recent posts frame the scandal in terms of race and gender, thereby avoiding the ways in which the police and other state agencies failed to properly investigate these cases and support victims. His commentary, like the negative media characterisations of perpetrators over the last decade, has been amplified by social media algorithms, adding fuel to the fire of cultural Islamophobia and severely compromising how South Asian men and communities are perceived by the wider population. Furthermore, giving disproportionate attention to a particular case or group of offenders distracts from the prevalence of child sexual abuse in the UK as a whole. Opportunities to identify and address the majority of cases, in which the perpetrators are more often white men, are lost in polemics over identity politics and white saviour narratives.

Many cases of child sexual abuse are already likely to remain hidden because of the tendency for such crimes to go unreported. Victims are often unlikely to come forward because they fear retribution from the offender, the stigma of sexual abuse, and concerns that they will not be believed and that the legal system will not bring them justice.

Moreover, offenders are often seen as ‘nice guys’ by their friends and colleagues. Many befriend and seduce their victims, taking advantage of their vulnerability. According to the prosecution in the Rochdale cases, the defendants threatened to harm the girls, or their families, should they attempt to flee. Through such intimidation, the men exercised control over the girls who, because of their history of traumatic experiences and difficult home lives, were particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

Time for action

The government has ceded to pressure and agreed to organise and fund five government-backed local inquiries. Cooper has stated that “effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers, and change, than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide”. In my view, the £5 million announced for funding these locally-led inquiries would be better spent on promoting specialist, preventative, therapeutic provision for the victims of child sexual exploitation. The government needs to set out a timeline regarding its commitment with regard to responding to the evidence contained in the IICSA report and urgently implementing its recommendations. This is critical for both improving the support offered to child and adult survivors of child sexual abuse and also addressing the systemic failures that were exposed by Professor Jay’s 2014 and 2022 reports. For too long, piecemeal, uncoordinated responses have allowed agencies to, both individually and collectively, deny accountability, by blaming ‘cultural sensitivities’ for their actions and failures to act. In reality, what seems to lie at the heart of their inaction is a callous disregard for abused women’s right to protection. Disjointed, dysfunctional practices will continue, even if positive legislative changes are implemented, until effective, consistent training of the police, social workers, health workers, and youth and community workers is provided to educate these groups about the issues faced by children who are at risk of exploitation.

Finally, raising moral outrage online over the issue of child sexual abuse and exploitation while simultaneously perpetrating harmful racial stereotypes serves a cynical agenda – not the victims of these crimes. It uses vulnerable women and girls as a front for igniting racialised violence and undermining the UK’s current administration, and so promoting right-wing policies on immigration and related issues. Musk’s rhetoric should be disavowed in place of action. We all share a collective responsibility to improve our understanding of the cultural specificities and institutional barriers that impede child sexual exploitation disclosure—only then will we be in a position to promote appropriate prevention and support.

Author details

Aisha K. Gill, Ph.D., FRSA CBE is an internationally and nationally acknowledged grassroots gender-based violence activist/researcher with over 20+ years’ experience, focused on Black and minoritized communities’ women and girls’ experiences of forced marriage, rape, policing, sexual violence, child sexual exploitation, FGM/C, and femicidal violence in the name of ‘honour’, which relates to issues around the intersections between law, policy and practice. She is currently Professor of Criminology and Head of Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol. In 2024 she was appointed Board of Trustees of Ashiana Network. [https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/aisha-k-gill | 📧 ak.gill@bristol.ac.uk ]

Category: Uncategorized

Tackling child sexual abuse: An action-led approach