‘Not our country anymore’: Anti-immigration tensions continue in Rotherham, ten days after the worst riots in the UK in a decade

ROTHERHAM, Aug. 16 — Ten days after the riots, the scars of violence are still visible outside the hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham, northern England, with many residents still shaken and worried about immigration.

“It was terrifying,” Clive Wingate, who lives near the now infamous Holiday Inn Express, told AFP.

“What was their intention when they set fire to the garbage bins to push them into the building where people were?” the 66-year-old retiree wondered.

The images from Rotherham are among the most striking of the recent riots in England and Northern Ireland.

Hundreds of men, some draped in the English flag, gathered outside the hotel chanting “kick them out”, as outnumbered police were fired upon with stones and burning objects.

The nationwide riots – the worst in the country since 2011 – began after a knife attack left three girls dead at a dance class on July 29 in Southport, another northern town.

False rumors circulated on social media that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker. Although police corrected the facts, anti-immigration riots broke out for more than a week, with more than 1,000 people arrested.

At the Holiday Day Inn in Rotherham, an economically deprived town in South Yorkshire, the area was still marked as a “crime scene” by a police cordon this week.

There were still traces of fire damage and plywood on doors and windows as indicators of the violence.

‘Very angry’

The green area a few kilometres from the city centre is usually quiet, residents said, adding that asylum seekers staying there while their applications are processed are not a major problem.

“The rioters deserve jail time, they are idiots,” said Charlotte Bedford, who was walking her dog.

“If you want to protest, protest peacefully,” the 34-year-old added.

Several rioters received heavy sentences. Three years in prison for a 19-year-old who threw stones at police officers and two years and eight months for a 60-year-old man who pulled an officer to the ground.

Phil Fletcher, a 65-year-old who worked in property maintenance, criticized the violence but was not surprised by the riots.

“There are millions of people who have had enough of immigration. It’s not our country any more,” said the pensioner, who voted for the anti-immigration Reform UK party in the general election won by Labour in early July.

Not far away, a woman added: “18,000 have arrived since the start of the year,” referring to the number of migrants arriving in south-east England on small boats after crossing the Channel.

“There are too many. Immigration must be the priority for this government,” she added.

Brexit supporters argued that Brexit would give the UK back control over its borders.

But legal and illegal immigration, including via small boats, has since reached record highs.

Natalie Jackson, a 28-year-old teaching assistant, told AFP that the UK is “a small island”.

“We are overcrowded. We can’t even get a doctor’s appointment anymore,” she said.

Caroline Roberts, a 66-year-old seamstress, added: “Nobody listens to people who complain.”

“If you say anything about it, you are called a racist.

“It makes people very angry. The help they (migrants) get, our own children cannot get. We are short of money here,” she added.

‘Frustrations’

Rotherham, with a population of 265,000, grew during the Industrial Revolution but suffered economic decline for decades as local steelworks and mines closed.

Between 1997 and 2013, the city was also plagued by a child sexual exploitation scandal that still reverberates today.

Gangs of men with Pakistani roots have abused, raped and sexually exploited about 1,400 girls, mostly white and from disadvantaged backgrounds, according to reports by a watchdog into the scandal.

The official report heavily criticised the authorities for failing to address the abuse, blaming it on issues of race, class and religion. It also raised fears that the ethnicity of the perpetrators would lead to accusations of racism.

This has only increased distrust of immigration and institutions in the city.

“There was always going to be more anger here,” Riaz Ayaaz explains, referring to the legacy of the abuse scandal.

The 29-year-old Muslim, born in Rotherham, said his mosque had asked worshippers to “look out for each other”, not to “react” to potential provocations and to “trust the police”.

He said “many people” used the deaths of the three girls in Southport “as an excuse to vent their frustrations”.

He called for a focus on “larger scale problems”, particularly the economy, “which affects everything else.” — AFP