British social cohesion has never looked so fragile

Britain Burns

The honeymoon for the UK’s new government came to a juddering halt after less than a month, when a 17-year-old male went on a stabbing spree at a vacation club for young girls in the North West town of Southport, killing three and injuring several others. Due to his status as a minor, the killer’s identity was not immediately disclosed, and social media was soon ablaze with rumors that he was a Muslim immigrant. Within hours, protestors had gathered outside mosques and Muslim-owned businesses, clashing with police, and shouting anti-Muslim and anti-immigration slogans.

In the interest of public safety, the judge on the case revealed that the perpetrator was a second-generation Rwandan Christian, born and bred in the UK, but this did nothing to quell the riots. Over the next few days, they spread, coming to a head two weekends ago.

Across the country, protestors vandalized Muslim businesses and institutions and shouted that the UK was being taken over by Islamists. In South Yorkshire, they surrounded a hotel housing asylum seekers, smashed windows, and tried to set it on fire. In the North East, hooligans set up a checkpoint, stopping every taxi and only allowing it to pass if the driver was white and English. Police officers were injured, and hundreds were arrested. Pro-Muslim and pro-immigration counter-protests sprang up, with violent clashes between the two.

The riots drew widespread condemnation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced it as “far-right thuggery” and vowed to deploy extra police, set up 24-hour courts, and clear space in Britain’s already overcrowded prisons for the perpetrators. The Conservatives, who have been largely irrelevant and quiet since their election drubbing, also condemned the riots. Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, who had initially speculated whether the attack was terror-related, hastily clarified that he did not condone criminal behavior or violence.

But Labour’s swift and unequivocal crackdown on far-right protests has led to some uncomfortable questions as to why the same level of enforcement was not seen for far-left protests like the weekly pro-Gaza marches in central London, where police have also been attacked, and Jews have been terrorized away from the area. When one journalist asked Metropolitan Police Chief Mark Rowley if there was “two-tier policing” in Britain, Rowley angrily knocked his microphone to the floor.

Starmer’s promise to ensure the Muslim community felt safe prompted a tweet from Elon Musk, who wondered aloud whether it shouldn’t be “ensuring all communities feel safe.” Cue a rather entertaining X-spat between the staid Starmer and mercurial Musk, who called the PM “two-tier Keir.”

There’s also unease in some circles with the tone of the government’s response, which doesn’t acknowledge any concerns felt by working-class communities experiencing high levels of immigration, and ethnic tensions stemming from Muslim communities. While there’s obviously no excuse for violence, the areas seeing the worst of the unrest are mostly lower-income white, with a significant proportion of Muslim residents, such as Rotherham and Hull in Yorkshire and Bolton in Greater Manchester. Liverpool, one of the UK’s most deprived cities, and Birmingham, the city with the highest Muslim population, also saw fierce clashes.

The tide seemed to turn last week, when thousands of anti-racism protestors outnumbered the smattering of far-right rivals. But the government has looked weak and reactive, and Starmer’s virtuous solemnity and technocratic response has highlighted his lack of political nous in a delicate and fast-changing situation. It’s another warning shot across the bow of “multiculturalism.” British social cohesion has never looked so fragile.

Incarcerated in Ireland

Ireland is not a friendly place for Jews at the best of times; there’s been growing anti-Israel sentiment since October 7, and in May, the country formally recognized a Palestinian state. But the arrest of London mohel Yoni Abrahams is a new low, and has provoked outrage in the Jewish community. Abrahams has been a qualified and insured mohel for 13 years, but was arrested because Irish law prohibits circumcision by someone who doesn’t have Irish credentials. He was taken into custody when preparing to circumcise two non-Jewish children.

Abrahams could face up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to £130,000 ($166,000). He was denied bail; the judge claimed his large family and home in London made him a flight risk. British and Irish Jewish organizations are working on the case. Ireland’s milah laws are rarely enforced, and the zealous clampdown on a Jewish rabbi, rather than on the Muslim community, where unlicensed circumcisions are thought to be far more frequent, is lamentable, if not surprising.

Despot on the Run

Dictators invariably come to sticky ends, as Sheikh Hasina discovered on Monday, August 5. The daughter of former Bangladeshi president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led the East Asian nation to independence in 1972, was prime minister for 15 years until protests toppled her and sent her fleeing to India. When she took power in 2009, Hasina was initially hailed as a poster-child of post-independence democracy, but became increasingly autocratic during her reign. Elections in 2014 and 2024 were boycotted by the opposition over allegations that they were neither free nor fair.

The protests were sparked by students demanding the abolition of job quotas reserved for relatives of supporters of independence, which date back 50 years. Students didn’t want to work in Bangladesh’s $40 billion garment industry, and faced higher levels of unemployment than less-educated Bangladeshis.

Hasina responded by cutting off the Internet and imposing curfews, but the harsh crackdown only galvanized her critics. As with many other coups, the tide turned when security forces stopped defending the government. The head of the military made repeated visits to the prime ministerial palace, warning Hasina that her time was up and her life was in danger. Finally, last Monday, she got the memo and fled by military helicopter to India with her sister, hours before jubilant protestors stormed the now-empty palace.

Economist Muhammad Yunus, 84, has been appointed interim leader, and newly liberated Bangladeshis hope his pioneering work on finance that won him the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize will help the country out of poverty.

Monopoly or Market Leader?

Google’s ubiquity has long been the bane of smaller rivals, traditional advertisers, and regulators. The tech giant, which has 90 percent of the online search market, argues its success is because it’s simply the best product out there. Last week, a district court judge in Washington, D.C., disagreed, citing Google’s partnerships with Apple, Samsung, Verizon, and other carriers to be the default search engine on their devices.

Judge Amit Mehta also ruled that Google monopolized the market for ads displayed next to its search results, but did not say Google had done so for all advertising; they have competition from upstarts like… Amazon, who sell ads for search results on their own website. So lawmakers may have scored a legal victory, but the tech scene is still very much the playground of the big boys.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1024)