How the Hell Did Police Think There Would Be 100 Riots?

On Wednesday afternoon, towns and cities across England shut down. Shops were boarded up in Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Aldershot, Westcliff-on-Sea and parts of London in anticipation of a horrific night of far-right violence of the kind that had swept the country in the previous week.

In the event, a fraction of the far-right disorder that was predicted materialised. Instead, there were scenes of massive anti-racist protests – a cathartic moment for many after a dreadful week.

The far-right were vastly outnumbered in many places they actually did show up – most obviously in Brighton, where pictures show police surrounding four sad sacks for their own protection against a sea of anti-racists. There was a more mixed picture outside of large, multi-racial cities.

In Walthamstow, northeast London, there was a strange but relieving sense of a non-event after such a fevered build-up. Novara Media reporters on the scene witnessed police trying to contain anti-racists under a section 14 order to keep them separate from racist agitators – before giving up on the idea, as there were no racists to be seen.

Anti-racists are celebrating a show of strength, and even the Daily Mail felt compelled to run the front page headline: “Night anti-hate marchers faced down the thugs.”

In the wake of apocalyptic predictions which never materialised, anti-fascists have expressed doubts about the integrity of claims of widespread disorder, and criticised the police for helping to create a climate of fear based on dodgy intelligence.

The origin of the claims that widespread disorder was in store are hard to trace exactly, but one factor was the leaking by the anti-fascist group Red Flare of a list of 39 potential targets posted by one of the administrators of a Telegram group chat used to plan the Southport riot – misinterpreted by many as a list of actual sites of planned disorder.

Alan Jones, a spokesperson for Red Flare, the anti-fascist research group that published the list, told Novara Media: “We did not think that 39 simultaneous arson attacks would happen, but there was a risk some could occur.” The group later added a note of caution, advising the public to critically assess whether threats of protest were reliable.

On Thursday morning, Nick Lowles, who leads the anti-extremism research group Hope Not Hate, was quoted in the Guardian expressing similar doubts. “The list has been compiled by one man in Liverpool, who simply googled immigration law firms etc,” he said. “No one is organising the local protests and there is very, very little chatter about it on the forums and WhatsApp groups that have been key over the past week.”

But by this point, it was too late. On Wednesday, a police source warned the Mirror of “at least 100 planned events”. 100 “events” soon became 100 “rallies” or “protests”: “Britain braced for more than 100 far-Right rallies on Wednesday”, reported the Telegraph. “At least 100 far-right protests have been announced for this evening,” Sky News sloppily reported.

Announced by whom? The far-right had made no such announcement. Even if it had, the idea that it could muster 100 simultaneous demonstrations across the country with just a few days’ notice should have drawn more scepticism from the media.

As the media hype grew, there were signs that claims were getting out of hand. Caroline Woodley, the mayor of Hackney released a statement denying claims circulating online that public disorder was planned in Stoke Newington. “Hackney Police has confirmed there is no intelligence at this time to suggest far-right protesters plan to be in the borough”, she said. “Despite best intentions, there is a danger that circulating unverified information can cause significant distress and potential harm.”

In Bristol, fears spread on social media that the “Medway SS”, a Kent-based and “locally infamous” neo-Nazi group was heading for the West Country city. “They have extremely violent intent” and “a pathetic love for arson”, said one social media post.

“Please can I stress in the strongest possible terms that this is not the case. We have not issued this ‘warning’, and at present we have no corroborated intelligence to suggest that this is the case,” Inspector Tom Booth told the local Stand Up to Racism group. Medway SS does not exist.​​

By this point, anti-fascists were expressing doubts to Novara Media about the true scale of the coming unrest. That evening, unlike most of the media, we hedged our bets, reporting on the potential disorder and anti-racist protests, but saying “It’s very unclear what exactly is going to happen” and noting that anti-fascist researchers had warned against spreading disinformation online.

By the next day, what happened and didn’t happen on Wednesday was being chalked up as brilliant policing. The Guardian reported: “The more than 100 far-right gatherings that were expected to take place on Wednesday failed to materialise following the mobilisation of 6,000 riot officers and the deterrent effect of the swift arrests and court appearances of those purported to participate in the violence over the weekend.”

Some reporting retrospectively revised the number of “expected” demonstrations up to 160. “Far-right stayed at home after seeing fellow rioters arrested, say police” was the headline i news went with.

The police were reluctant to take all of the credit for themselves and used the opportunity to place themselves on the side of the public. NPCC chairman Gavin Stephens told the Mail: “What we saw last night was, I suppose, the very best of Team UK in that people came out onto the street in their hundreds of thousands to stand up to this terrible violence.”

It seems doubtless that swift, punitive justice and large anti-racist mobilisations would have a disruptive and preventive effect of far-right organising. However the police have largely evaded questions over the quality of their intelligence, and their seeming casual willingness to add to a climate of fear.

The NPCC did not respond to Novara Media’s request for comment.

Red Flare’s Alan Jones said: “The police have focused their intelligence gathering efforts overwhelmingly on the left for decades. Perhaps as a result of this there appear to be serious gaps in their intelligence capabilities with regards to the far right.”

The far right, meanwhile, have fallen further down the conspiracy rabbit hole, with Tommy Robinson claiming that the 100 riots claim were “clearly manufactured”.

“They’ve created this whole thing to try and shut everyone’s legitimate concerns over immigration. So they continue flooding the nation and labelling anyone talking about it ‘far right’, he said.

Several actual far-right protests are planned for the weekend and anti-racist counter protests are being organised. Jones said: “The anti-fascist protests on Wednesday evening were a beautiful display of community solidarity but they do not mean the anti-migrant protests will stop.

“Anti-fascists need to find solutions which work in the places where the rioting is happening, not just in large metropolitan cities.”

The no-show from the far-right on Wednesday may have exposed some weaknesses of its “networked”, “post-organisational” form of organising – as well as the power of the left’s community-based organising, strengthened by months of massive pro-Palestine protests.

Asad Rahman, the director of War on Want who has taken part in anti-racist struggle since the 1970s, told Novara Media: “In one way, the far-right provided the progressives with a mobilising moment. And actually, in that sense of where the power lay in the street, it actually was quite symbolic.”