UK Far-right Riots - Poster of the Week
Black Peoples Day of Action
C. Abuk; New Cross Massacre Action Committee
Printer: Planographics
Offset, 1982
United Kingdom
91061
CSPG’s Poster of the Week memorializes the New Cross Massacre. On January 18, 1981, 13 young Black people–primarily teenagers–were killed and more than 50 injured in a fire that broke out at a birthday party in southeast London. The police denied the fire was deliberate or racially motivated, but the community holds to this day that the fire was started by local fascists using a petrol bomb. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Black immigrant communities of England were consistently terrorized by neo-fascists and the far-right National Front party. This was not the last wave of violent racist and xenophobic protests that have erupted in Britain. Black, Asian, and Muslim communities in the UK–and Europe and the US–are being increasingly terrorized yet again. In July 2024, three girls were killed and 10 seriously wounded in a mass stabbing at a dance class in Southport, England. The assailant was a teenage British citizen born in Wales and raised by Christian Rwandans. Nevertheless, riots broke out that targeted migrants and Muslims. Protesters threw bricks at a mosque, damaged cars, and attacked police officers. In December 2025, a white man, Henry Nowak, was stabbed by a Sikh man, Vickrum Digwa, in Southampton, England. Far-right figures, including Elon Musk and JD Vance, immediately blamed the killing on “the mass invasion of migrants.” Digwa was sentenced to life in prison for murder earlier this month, but that didn’t stop at least 1,000 protesters from swarming the neighborhood where Digwa lived and terrorizing the residents. Two weeks ago, on June 9th, Belfast, Northern Ireland erupted in two nights of race-targeted terrorism. Following the stabbing of a white man by a Sudanese man who claimed asylum in the United Kingdom, masked white men and youths set fire to a bus and several cars and homes that racist protesters assumed housed immigrants. More than two dozen people lost their homes, about 200 families were evacuated, and 12 police officers were injured. Despite the racist and xenophobic acts of domestic terrorism, many in the UK have protested such acts. Three thousand people attended an anti-racism rally in Belfast. It is not enough. In the UK, Europe, and the US, (ex)colonial and imperial nations must reject the violent and racist rhetoric used to target migrants and refugees. Many flee their homes due to imperialist violence and blood for oil wars, climate disaster exacerbated by hyper consumerism, and decades of resource extraction causing mass destabilization in areas already vulnerable after centuries of colonization. Migrants should be welcomed. Do not tolerate intolerance! |
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