Britain has been shocked by images of burned-out cars, smashed windows and mobs attacking hotels. From Portsmouth to Hartlepool, Leeds to London, Bolton to Bristol large, violent protests are shaking the nation. Why?

Immigration and ethnic tensions have dominated the news since Sir Keir Starmer took office on July 4:

• On July 18, gypsies (or Roma, to use the more politically correct term) rioted in Leeds, burning a double-decker bus and attacking police cars after authorities tried to take three neglected children into care.
• On July 23, a video clip of a police officer kicking a Muslim man in the head at Manchester airport went viral. In response, a mob surrounded Rochdale Police Station, shouting, “Allahu akbar.” Later, the full video emerged, showing the man had attacked the police. He and his friend had punched two officers to the ground, broken a female officer’s nose, and possibly broke the jaw of another officer.
• On the same day a lieutenant colonel was stabbed to death near his barracks in Kent. His killer, Anthony Esan, was reportedly born in Nigeria—“reportedly” because Nigerian newspapers say he’s Nigerian, but no news source in the United Kingdom mentions it.
• On July 29, the son of immigrants from Rwanda murdered three children and wounded eight more in a stabbing spree at a dance class in Southport, near Liverpool. The stabbing happened at a community center during a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga event for children ages 6 to 11.

The result has been protests, riots and ethnic clashes. In Rotherham on Sunday, rioters gathered outside a Holiday Inn Express used to house immigrants. Some smashed windows; a handful tried to set the building on fire.

In Liverpool, videos show rioters shoving a policeman off his motorbike, looting a convenience store, and setting fire to a library. In Hull, they slashed the tires of half a dozen cars at a Kurdish-owned business. And in Stoke-on-Trent, protesters and Muslims clashed outside a mosque.

Many intended for the marches to stay peaceful. The organizer of a march in Middlesbrough on Sunday said: “You are all here today, lads, for the three kids who were killed in Southport and the future of our country. It is not about race or color or religion. Let’s all keep it right today and stand up for our country, our kids and our families.” Hardly a far-right sentiment. Even so, there was violence—a group attacked cars and homes in an immigrant area. Immigrants, largely Pakistani Muslims, responded by attacking random white people in the town center.

Other demonstrations, like those in Bolton, stayed peaceful until Muslim counterprotesters charged a police line, shouting, “Allahu akbar.”

Meanwhile in Belfast, the protests succeeded in bringing communities together. Catholics and Protestants in Ireland have been in violent conflict for hundreds of years—but they joined forces to protest against mass-immigration.

The number of protesters in all these protests is measured in the hundreds; Liverpool was the largest with 1,500.

Crackdown

Despite the relatively low numbers, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is threatening wide-raging changes to British society as a response. He promised “wider deployment of facial recognition technology” to restrict the movements of potential rioters, so they’re stopped “before they can even board a train.” He also threatened “large social media companies and those who run them,” in a thinly veiled threat to X and Elon Musk. He said the violence was “clearly whipped up on [these platforms]. That is also a crime. It is happening on your premises. And the law must be upheld everywhere.”

Attacking libraries or convenience stores is never justified, and upholding the rule of law is essential for any country. Yet contrast Sir Keir’s response to other similar protests. Few have been arrested in the widespread pro-Palestinian protests that have endangered Jews in London—and we’ve heard no similar speeches from Sir Keir on those subjects. When Black Lives Matter protests left 27 policemen injured, Sir Keir did not say, “Whatever the apparent cause or motivation we make no distinction. Crime is crime,” as he did this weekend. Instead he took a knee, siding with protestors who were “rightly demanding justice.”

In the wake of the recent protests, there’s a push to demonize anyone concerned about immigration as far right. This weekend’s protests could end up mirroring America’s Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protest. Clearly illegal activity by a few is used as an excuse to outlaw an entire worldview. There may have been more genuine violence in this weekend’s riots than on January 6, but the vast majority in the UK concerned about immigration are not burning down libraries—yet they could find themselves silenced nonetheless.

Anyone who points out that for over a decade, every government Britian has elected has promised to reduce immigration—only to renege on that promise once in office—is supporting the rioters. Yet it’s not extreme to point out that governments that routinely ignore the will of the people risk explosion. If people can’t change the direction of a country via the ballot box, they’ll look for other ways.

The Hampshire and Isle of Wight police and crime commissioner condemned the violence and criminality. But she also acknowledged accusations of “two-tier policing” that treats these protesters differently from those who have official support. She also warned:

The government must acknowledge what is causing this civil unrest in order to prevent it. Arresting people, or creating violent-disorder units, is treating the symptom and not the cause. The questions these people want answering; what is the government’s solution to mass uncontrolled immigration? How [is] the new Labour government going to uphold and build on British values? This is the biggest challenge facing Sir Kier Starmer’s government, and it’s bitten quickly.

For this she has been widely attacked. A former senior police detective interviewed on the bbc tried to point out the context surrounding the riots, but the presenter immediately cut him off.

Censorship Regime

Much of the protests are being blamed on “misinformation.” True, a rumor circulated on X that the Southport attacker was a Muslim who came to the UK illegally on a boat, but the cause of the “misinformation” is mainstream censorship. For days afterward, all that the mainstream media would say about the attack was that he was a British lad born in Cardiff. The fact that his name was Axl Muganwa Rudakubana and that his parents were immigrants from Rwanda was omitted from the vast majority of news sources. Even now, unless you know the name, it’s hard to find it on Google. If vital bits of information are left out, of course people will turn to other sources for their news. It opens the door for the kind of false information that spreads fast.

For the elites, the real issue isn’t misinformation—it’s information they can’t control. They’d rather Axl Rudakubana’s name never circulated. The result is that many no longer trust the government or the news.

“For an increasing number of people, there’s now an automatic presumption that the authorities aren’t telling them the truth,” wrote Melanie Phillips. “That’s because there’s such a dislocation between what people can see with their own eyes is happening and what they are told or not told about it and what they can see is or is not being done about it.”

These riots are in part a response to how hard it is to get the truth. Yet they could be an excuse to for greater censorship to X and use of video surveillance to control society. One former Labour government minister even called for a covid-style lockdown.

This is coming from a government that has pledged tougher hate-speech laws and stopped the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. They promised new laws against “Islamaphobia” to make criticism or complaints about radical Islam illegal. As Spiked wrote: “Starmer belongs to a breed of politician who instinctively sees dissent as dangerous and citizens as needing to be monitored and managed. I dare say we can expect more ‘liberal’ authoritarianism from this barrister turned chief prosecutor turned technocrat-in-chief. It’s in his dna.”

Any clampdown could lead to a much worse explosion. Rotherham has been a center for protests. For years, Pakistani Muslims systemically raped over 1,400 girls, and authorities colluded to cover it up. Even now that the story has broken, many of the worst perpetrators haven’t been deported. Again, attacking libraries or hotels is wrong, but it’s obvious and understandable that people in Rotherham are angry.

The events of the last few weeks are just the latest in a series of outrages that go back years.

A Broken Society

Britain, as a society, long ago rejected the Bible. Yet the Bible describes what Britain is going through in precise detail—and it gives the solution. Verses written thousands of years ago describe precisely the immigration problems we see now.

For decades, the Philadelphia Trumpet and its predecessor, the Plain Truth under Herbert W. Armstrong, have shown that the biblical Israelite tribe of Ephraim is the ancestor of modern Britain. Bible prophecies about this tribe apply to the British today. (Request our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy to learn more.) The book of Hosea is written directly to Ephraim.

Hosea catalogs many problems we face today—and it gives the solutions. It describes a society where families are plagued by adultery and immorality, and family decline worsens (Hosea 4:14). Leaders of the nation are “oppressed and broken in judgment” (Hosea 5:11). Governing officials make poor decisions and the whole nation suffers.

As a result of these foolish decisions, “Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people [or foreigners]; Ephraim is a cake not turned” (Hosea 7:8). In some ways, the nation may look good on the surface, but on the inside it has been overbaked and burned out. Yet the weaknesses are revealed suddenly—its society is hollow.

The Bible warns that when Britain needs strength and unity, it will suddenly be found missing. “Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not” (verse 9).

In Hosea 8:7, God says, “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind ….” Hosea, and all Bible prophecy, is about cause and effect. We have caused our own problems, and God will let us experience the results. “O Israel,” God laments, “thou hast destroyed thyself …” (Hosea 13:9).

For decades, Britain’s own governments brought in immigrants on a massive scale. God is allowing these problems.

Why? Hosea 4:6 says we “are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” We have been running our lives, our families and our societies our own way. God wants us to see the problems we are causing ourselves, nationally and individually. He has allowed us to elect foolish leaders who have put in place all kinds of destructive problems. Going our own way without submitting to the knowledge of God leads to problems, frustration and unfulfilled lives.

But “in me is thine help,” God says (Hosea 13:9). “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). God wants to teach us how to successfully run our lives and our nation. Once we heed that knowledge, we can thrive. “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him,” God says. “I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon” (Hosea 14:4-5). Hosea ends with a message of hope: Turn to God and He will give us the solutions.