UK a ‘powder keg' of social tensions a year on from summer riots, report warns

The Guardian

9 hours ago

The UK is a 'powder keg' of social tensions, with a third of people rarely meeting anyone from different backgrounds, research has found.
A report from the thinktank British Future and the social cohesion group Belong Network found that a year on from last summer's riots, there was a risk of unrest being reignited unless urgent action was taken to address issues of polarisation and division.
The research found 31% of adults said they rarely or never had opportunities to meet people from different backgrounds, and a third say they did not frequently get a chance to meet other people at all in their local community.
In a foreword to the report, the former Conservative chancellor Sajid Javid and the Labour politician Jon Cruddas said: 'The bonds that hold society together – civic participation and a shared sense of belonging – are under growing pressure.
'This is leaving our society more fragmented, fragile and less resilient to internal and external threats. At the same time, forces driving division are intensifying, political polarisation is deepening and trust in institutions is declining. Unless we address these forces, the very basis of our democracy is at risk.'
They said last summer's riots after the Southport knife attack, the more recent racially motivated rioting in Northern Ireland and the findings of the grooming gangs inquiry had 'laid bare the fragility of social cohesion in the UK' and were part of pressures that have been 'building for decades'.
The new report, The State of Us, will be a 'foundational input' to the new Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion, chaired by Javid and Cruddas.
It was based on the views of 177 UK organisations working on social cohesion and community development, as well as 113 written submissions of evidence, a nationally representative survey and eight focus groups in towns and cities across the UK, including in areas affected by last year's riots.
Anti-hate campaigners, meanwhile, say X is amplifying and monetising dangerous content and failing to enforce its own prohibitions against violent incitement.
Research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate found more than 4,300 posts in the past year that promoted violence against Muslims and immigrants, sent in reply to tweets by half a dozen high-profile account holders including Tommy Robinson, Andrew Tate and Laurence Fox.
The CCDH chief executive, Imran Ahmed, said: 'One year on from the Southport riots, X remains the crucial hub for hate-filled lies and incitement of violence targeting migrants and Muslims.'
If social media firms do not enforce their own rules, governments must confront the 'profit-driven amplification of violent and hateful content', he said, or the 'harm to targeted communities will grow and metastasise, with devastating consequences for British society'.
The research follows a warning from MPs that current online safety laws contain 'major holes', as the Online Safety Act does not currently identify misinformation or disinformation as harms that need to be addressed by firms.
The government said it did include an offence of false communications 'to target the spread of disinformation online when there is intent to cause harm'.
The British Future report stated that successive governments had failed to take sustained, proactive measures to address social cohesion, and that 'a 'doom loop' of inaction, crisis and piecemeal response had failed to strengthen the foundations of communities across the country.'
One reason behind the lack of social contact was money, the report found. Half of respondents said they did not always have enough money to go to places where they would meet other people.
Jake Puddle, a senior researcher at British Future who led the report, said: 'We are facing a long, hot summer, with a powder keg of tensions left largely unaddressed from last year that could easily ignite once again. People are unhappy about their standard of living and the state of their local area, and don't trust politicians to sort it out.
'Public concerns about immigration and asylum can also be a flashpoint. That's only made worse when people have little contact with new arrivals, where public voices exacerbate division, and where governments fail to support or consult communities in their plans for asylum accommodation.'
Kelly Fowler, chief executive of the Belong Network, said: 'Good work is happening across the UK on cohesion and community strength, but it is patchy and often confined to areas of high diversity or where tensions have spilled over into unrest.
'A lack of sustained funding limits its impact. It's time this issue was treated with the urgency it merits, in every part of Britain. We must not wait for more riots to happen.'
The research found there was widespread concern about declining public services, inequality, the cost of living and the impact of social media, along with a lack of trust in politicians and institutions to help put things right.
It also identified immigration and asylum as key issues raised by research participants, who were often focused on integration and pressures on housing and public services.
But it found cause for optimism, with 69% of people feeling their local area was a place where people from different backgrounds got on well together, and many participants recalled moments of togetherness and community strength in adversity during the Covid-19 lockdowns.