After the Riots

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This is...

This is what happens as an example of the government ignoring the people.

Get down!

I spent the weekend of the August riots among those considered the culprits.

You like all this?

Do you like little girls getting stabbed?

After the sweep of arrests and imprisonments that followed, we visited communities around Liverpool where some of the rioters live.

You see people on the streets who were born and bred there.

And then...

And then you see sort of like migrants in five-star hotels.

So, you know, where's the logic in that?

They're not looking after their own people, but they look after everyone else.

Tensions were already simmering over a hotel filled with asylum seekers nearby.

A situation repeated around the country.

A lot of it started with the government, I think.

Blame them.

They just think, oh, we'll put them down there because that's a bit of a rough area.

We'll throw them in there.

We know what they're doing.

People told us they have legitimate concerns.

But say they're too afraid to speak out for fear of criticism from so-called liberal urban elites.

There is a concern about not wanting to be called racist and wanting to have a decent say.

Avoidance means things can bubble up and curdle because they're not expressed.

There's no catharsis there.

The question is, have heavy prison sentences really resolved the issues that led to the violence?

Or simply buried them for a while?

Until the next time.

We'll see where our pricks come in.

After the Southport stabbings, the so-called far-right rallied troops on social media.

They urged followers onto the streets and Liverpool was soon trending as a location for a protest.

On the Saturday morning, beside the famous Liver building, a large crowd had gathered.

You've come to Liverpool and you speak to the people.

And I'd like to know why you haven't got the guts to stop the violence.

I've covered far-right rallies since the 1980s.

But this was all very different from the days of swastikas and skinheads.

There were mums with toddlers, pensioners with Union Jack umbrellas, young, well-heeled professionals.

They'd gathered at the foot of a stone monument where there was a microphone,

and a queue of disgruntled speakers.

What about all the homeless, the stepping on the heads of all the homeless to get into a hotel room?

What about that? Who's going to stop that?

Get them out!

They're laughing at us! They're laughing at us! They're laughing at us!

There was little mention of the Southport stabbings.

It hardly seemed to matter that disinformation about the identity of the alleged attacker started it all.

This was now about broader issues around immigration.

Immigration and the effect on the local community.

They need to listen to us.

Close the border! Close the border! Close the border!

Just like America!

Just like America's fighting it out in the Senate right now over the border crisis.

We've got the same border crisis.

America's doing something about it.

Now the UK needs to do something about it!

Yeah!

You keep doing this until we listen!

Yeah!

Most of these people gave up on mainstream media long ago.

They say their views are not represented, that any public debate about immigration is blocked.

Now they get their news from social media influencers instead.

Liz died, the media lied! Liz died, the media lied!

I think we've all realised by now,

the media are our enemy!

We are the media!

Make sure you record everything!

And let's get it out there!

Because the mainstream, the BBC, they're not any part!

They are scum! They are Peter Pan protectors!

Get them out as well!

Yes!

It's really surprising that, you know, we're right in the middle of it.

There's probably, I would say, three, three hundred people there.

And the animosity, the fierce animosity and the screaming about the media,

and specifically about the BBC,

and what they would call the disinformation of mainstream media.

And when you're in the centre of it and people are screaming in your face,

it's really alarming to see.

People told us that the BBC covers up scandals,

that it harbours paedophiles,

and, crucially, that it only reflects the views of a small urban elite,

playing down immigration issues in deprived areas like theirs.

Get them out! Get them out! Get them out!

The protest was vitriolic, but not violent.

Then, without warning, a counter-protest of left-leaning activists

that had gathered earlier at the other end of the city

suddenly began pouring down a side street towards the Liver Building,

chanting and finger-jabbing.

Just be careful here. Seriously.

Because they're coming down. Right.

So what's happening now is that these are two enormous crowds of very angry people

on completely opposite sides of the political spectrum.

One of them is walking down towards here.

There are police in the middle.

But I would say there were 200 or 300 on either side.

I think the police will do really well to contain this

because of the numbers involved and the fury involved.

Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!

The counter-protesters waved banners and yelled slogans in their rivals' faces.

It wasn't long before the chanting became very offensive.

Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!

There's missiles being thrown now,

and there are people squaring up to each other in the middle of the road.

People are throwing beer glasses and other missiles across.

And actually, there's quite a lot of incoming there.

Both sides here have been confrontational.

Both sides looked to me as though they wanted to kick off in some kind of way.

Power! Power! Power!

On this side of the police lines,

a new, more menacing element began pushing to the front.

There's a lot of very young lads here, 17 or 18-year-olds,

and they're gathering now,

and it looks as though what they're doing is they've got a plan.

And there's about 40 or 50 of them, like a brigade,

and they're all going to go round, I think.

They're going to come at them from the other side.

I need a balaclava.

There's a woman just near me now who's shouting,

''I need a bally. I need a bally.''

She means, ''I need a balaclava.''

And somebody's given her a balaclava and she's shouting, ''Let's go. Let's go.''

It's such an unusual mixture of people, this,

because, you know, there's a front-line group that are far right

and they are wearing balaclavas and they are menacing.

And then there are other people here who are, I would say, in their 60s or 70s,

sort of, you know, very well-groomed.

Some people have bought M&S bags and they're having picnics here.

The unrest in Liverpool and in other towns and cities across the country

may not have come completely out of the blue.

Simmering tensions over immigration policy had been rising for years.

In Merseyside, in some senses,

this was a continuation of an earlier violent protest 18 months ago.

One day in 2022, a group of 100 assignment seekers

were brought to this hotel in Kirby, half an hour from Liverpool

and one of the most deprived areas in the country.

They would live here,

in a spa and fitness hotel,

whilst awaiting a decision on whether they could stay in the UK or not.

For some, the process could take years.

Locals felt overwhelmed.

Back in 2016, there'd been no asylum seekers at all in the area.

And now, at this one hotel, the number rose to around 200.

It was a big surprise to us,

obviously for our capacity in terms of supporting people.

Suddenly there was a lot more people

who needed our support and help,

and questions were raised over whether we had that capacity

to deliver the level of support that was required.

Margaret Roach runs a refugee charity called Share Knowsley.

She's a pulse of calm energy

in the dark and disordered world of asylum advice.

Born and raised in the area,

she knows the kind of people who protested in Liverpool.

She also remembers, with visible unease,

that back in 2022,

even the local authority had no warning

that the hotel was about to be turned into a large asylum facility.

In a very deprived area,

you can understand people feeling a bit of angst or anxiety

over suddenly, you know,

100 men being on the edges of their house and estates.

I don't think consideration was given much to the impact

on the wider community,

but equally, given the backlog of asylum cases

that had increased over that time,

people have to be placed somewhere to live.

The asylum seekers were all men,

barred from work and waiting for up to three years for a decision.

Margaret says they weren't to blame for the asylum backlog.

People didn't need to be in those hotels at all

because if they'd have processed the claims,

quickly enough,

there wouldn't have been the need at all for hotels.

I'm not totally oblivious to people's concerns.

You have a very deprived community who'd felt disaffected,

not listened to, disenfranchised,

not cared about because we have a housing crisis,

NHS in crisis, lots of things.

And obviously, in a black and white way,

it looks like,

asylum seekers are getting preferential treatment.

We know the reality that it's not as what they perceive it to be.

Living in a hotel is not the lovely luxury life

that people think it might be.

4 and 3, 43.

Half a mile from the hotel,

a dozen mainly women retirees are whiling away

the hot August afternoon playing bingo,

manicured and perfumed in summer blouses.

5.50, what do you say?

5.00, 5.00, it's off to work we go.

They too were shocked by events at the Suites Hotel.

They'd never heard of the government's dispersion policy

to spread asylum seekers around the country

and felt that Kirby was an odd place to choose,

a predominantly white, working class area

where one in four adults are income deprived.

Being honest, that used to be a lovely place,

the Suites.

The Suites Hotel?

Yeah.

We used to go for afternoon teas and,

you know, as a group, used to do all that

and all that stopped because, you know,

immigration has to be placed.

But that's the life, isn't it?

Got to have somewhere to live.

Did you, did the community know that that was going to happen,

that the hotel was going to be used for that?

We didn't know, no.

That all, all got shut up.

The Suites Hotel was one of around 400 hotels

chosen across the country,

most of them in less affluent areas,

costing up to £8 million a day.

They're putting pressure on the people in the community

because they're not dealing with the issue.

Do you mean what the government, the people who put them there?

Yes, that's what I mean.

That's what I'm saying.

If a politician's making the decisions,

they've done it wrong,

and they're putting it there,

and they're putting it in a small community

instead of spreading them all out into a bigger area.

The Kirby's are only a little small town.

Nearby, in Kirby Market,

shoppers expressed communal embarrassment

about the riots in Liverpool.

But almost everyone we spoke to had strong views about immigration,

in part influenced by the surprise arrivals at the nearby hotel.

Many wouldn't go on tape, though,

until we met John, a local delivery driver.

A lot of it started with the governments, I think.

Blame them.

They just think, oh, we'll put them down there

because that's a bit of a rough area,

we'll throw them in there.

They know where they're putting them,

they know what they're doing.

Do you think it's the optics,

in the sense that there's a lot of people here

who live quite difficult lives,

and then they look at people living in a spa hotel down the road

and think, well, they're not going to be able to do it,

they're not going to be able to do it,

and then they look at a spa hotel down the road

and think, what's going on?

The rumour was they were getting a million pounds

for our asylum seekers.

But they've got to go somewhere, haven't they?

They don't like it.

But they've got to go somewhere, haven't they?

You can't blame people

for trying to get a better life for themselves.

By chance, we came across a former asylum seeker

from the hotel who is back in the area visiting friends.

He's from Iran, raised in Afghanistan

and has since been granted refugee status.

The rooms were for one person,

but they had divided in two,

and two people living there sharing bathroom and the toilet.

It's got a spa pool, it's got a very nice brasserie,

and it looks like a luxury hotel.

What was it like living there? What were conditions like?

I was feeling like we were just trapped there

and didn't let us to do anything.

We were not allowed to be outside for a night

to see some friends or go somewhere.

We were just there, kept there.

Did you use the spa?

There was no spa there.

If there was, we were not allowed to use it.

We didn't have any spa, any luxury options.

People should not listen to this.

Everything comes on social media about immigration.

Go have a search for yourself.

Mostly our immigration communities, they are not harmful.

But the disquiet wasn't just from social media.

Locals thought they were witnessing special treatment

for asylum seekers, while they themselves contended with

food banks and queues for council housing up to a decade long.

Asylum seekers and refugees, I feel, have been scapegoated.

For all the problems and all the ills of society,

we've had years and years of mismanagement of housing,

the NHS, everything else.

You would have had local people working in the hotel,

maybe in the kitchens, maybe cleaning or whatever.

And if they've got relatives, close relatives,

who were struggling to put their heating on maybe,

or something, and they see the heating's on all the time,

and it's winter, and I can't put my heating on

because I can't afford to pay my bills,

it can appear that, well, they're getting preferential treatment

and the government doesn't care about us,

but it cares more about them.

And so there's the potential for division there.

I think one of the biggest risks is that there is no communication

whatsoever from the Home Office and the companies outsourced to do this.

to local councils and other people in the area.

Sundar Katwala is director of British Future,

a charity and think tank that works on issues of immigration, identity and race.

The case for dispersal is supposed to be that people should be spread around

so there isn't too much pressure anywhere.

If there are economic incentives to house people where it's cheapest,

you end up in a situation where the portion of asylum seekers

in Middlesbrough will be much higher than it is here.

I don't think this is in any other part of the country.

But if you do that without any plan for communication

between the people who are going to be living there

while they're waiting to have their case heard

and the people who already live there,

then you are bringing visibility change to an area

that is deprived and poorer and struggling.

It is absolutely going to open the doors to a rumour mill

if there's no official communication.

Liverpool is a city built on immigration

and despite the unease, there was still broad tolerance of the newcomers.

Then, in Kirby, rumours began to circulate

that some asylum seekers were prowling local schools

looking for girls to abduct.

Then, false claims that fences were being erected around the schools

to stop them peering in.

John, from the market, read some of the posts on social media.

Young girls are being approached by foreign men

and she was only 13, I think she was.

That kind of kicked stuff off.

John had seen a video that seemed to show a male asylum seeker

asking a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Kirby for a kiss.

John's friends were soon talking about it.

And what were they saying?

They were looking for them.

Looking for them in what sense?

They were out in cars looking for the description of the fella

because we tend to take care of our own round here.

Did you go looking for them? No.

But you know people who did? Yeah, yeah.

I'm 42 and small for that.

It's all these young ones who think they're hard.

Police investigated, but there were no charges.

Nevertheless, on social media, far-right groups saw an opportunity

and, just like in the Southport stabbings,

amplified the story for their own political ends.

Angry crowds descended on the hotel in February last year.

Rocks and fireworks were thrown.

A police van was torched.

Eight men were jailed for violent disorder.

There were protests outside other hotels for asylum seekers,

organised by far-right groups in Rotherham, Wigan, Coventry, Hull.

Soon the concerns felt in Kirby and mirrored in other,

often deprived areas, would play out on streets across the country.

One of the key things is that we've seen,

we've seen a lot of crises in recent years

that have confronted large parts of the populations

with fears, with uncertainties,

with also questions about their own identity.

And some people don't feel heard or feel left behind.

And the far-right has become increasingly skilled

at exploiting these grievances.

Dr Julia Ebner is a researcher at Oxford University,

specialising in radicalisation, extremism and terrorism.

She was monitoring the far-right response

to what happened in Southport.

The stabbing was a really, from the far-right's perspective,

important strategic event because it was very emotional

and, of course, very tragic.

And they could immediately mobilise their networks

and their online alternative ecosystem

for information or disinformation sharing.

And they were tapping into a lot of grievances

that have, of course, been boiling underneath the surface already

for years in large parts of the population.

The asylum seekers,

from the Suites Hotel in Kirby,

have since moved into more discreet, shared housing,

some of them still in the area.

But the distrust that began with unannounced arrivals at the hotel

and that spiralled into violence

was a warning sign of what was to come.

Back in the rising heat of the recent protest,

outside the Liver Building by the sparkling waters of the Mersey,

we were approached by a man

in a smart workman's jacket.

I'm a site manager. I'm a professional.

And I never go to any of these things.

It doesn't interest me and all that.

But enough's enough.

He'd watched as the counter-protesters

surged down a side street,

the police, in his view, allowing an unnecessary confrontation.

This was a peaceful process that was there about the kids.

That was all it was. And everyone's seen her.

And all of a sudden, the mood changed

when the police or whoever allowed this other march

to walk down this road.

There's a thousand streets in Liverpool

to be allowed them to walk down this one.

The arrival of the counter-protesters he interpreted

as proof that the police give preferential treatment to one side

while trying to shut down the other,

so-called two-tier policing.

In this case, allowing left-wing activists

to square up to their rivals.

Why? Why do you think they did that?

To confront them, get the headlines for tomorrow,

get a report, BBC One, whatever, far-right activists,

blah, blah, bloody blah.

It pinches out to me, the bad ones again.

If that would have been one of our marches,

we would have been stopped.

If that was Millwall and West Ham,

you wouldn't have let them walk down together.

Come on.

Merseyside police told us because there'd been no criminality

or disorder among the counter-protesters,

they had no legal powers to stop them moving around the city.

By now, a lot of the people we'd first spoken to,

the grandmothers and picnickers, had melted away

and a hard core of rioters remained.

There's a flare being let off in the middle of this now.

There's red mist sweeping across the crowd

and across the Liver building.

That's both sides and it's acrid stuff

and both sides are still squaring up.

The police are struggling to contain this.

The crowd surged towards The Strand,

a two-kilometre thoroughfare between the historic waterfront

and the city centre, overlooked by Grade II listed buildings.

Traffic was forced to stop as people spilled into the road.

You can hear the police dogs in the background now.

They've got a lot of Alsatians here.

They need to get away from these little lads, you know.

In one engulfed vehicle,

we saw a woman clasping her partner's hand, paralysed with fear.

She tried to avoid eye contact with the rioters

while her children peered wide-eyed through the back window.

Right, there are running fights and scuffles

all along the side streets here.

There are gangs of lads with balaclavas and face masks

and they're running after each other

and there's a lad just next to me throwing a bottle into the crowd.

And just in the background above all of this

is a big digital sign that says,

SOUTHPORT TOGETHER.

And together, this city is certainly not.

Among the crowd were young, masked youths

mixed with middle-aged men in polo shirts,

revelling in the violence.

By this time, the counter-protesters were out of sight

and the police had become the target.

The coppers allowed them to march down there

and to protect her again.

We're getting blamed for our rights, or the same way for our rights.

EDL. There's no EDL here.

There's no EDL.

She armour knows what's going on.

He's protecting all them.

Cheers are going through.

This is causing half of this.

The police?

Yeah.

He should have marched them straight into the Mersey.

Why did you come down today?

For the kids that got killed.

To save our kids and all that.

It's not just about that, though.

It's not just about the kids, though, is it?

You know what I mean?

It's about look after our own first.

I know it's a big picture thing,

but all this started, this recent spate of riots and things,

because of what happened in Southport.

Yeah, but that's like the straw that brought the camels back.

But it wasn't an immigrant, was it?

No.

It doesn't matter, though.

It was still...

It was the straw that brought the camels back

of everyone's been sinking the same ship for years

and then because that started it, now we're all like,

yep, we've all had enough.

We've all had enough.

Everyone's had enough.

More hardcore rioters began arriving in balaclavas and on bikes,

organised groups who seemed to know each other,

lying in wait down the side streets.

This is turning into something much, much worse.

It's all widespread with a lot more people.

So there are hundreds of people running down the streets now

and police are running after them.

Yeah, that is proper running battle with the police

in the centre of Liverpool on a beautiful sunny day

in the middle of August.

And I can see, yeah, the police, you know,

people are attacking the police.

There's a lot of people throwing bricks

and the police are charging down the road now

and you can...

You can hear in the background, there's a policeman over.

There's a policeman over.

And he's up again, but you can hear the cheering on this side,

the delight, when it looked as though they were going to pick

a police warrant off like that.

She was on the ground for a few seconds.

The police had riot shields, helmets and batons.

Occasionally, they charged into the crowd,

grabbed a ringleader and tried to wrestle him to the ground.

These were some of the people who'd later been killed

and had to face lengthy prison sentences

in the mass prosecutions that followed.

Bricks. Bricks. Bricks.

They're throwing bricks now.

Hang on a minute, wheel to back off a little bit.

Thanks.

Move, move, move, move, move, move, move, move, move.

You OK, Paul?

The police tactic was to separate the rioters

into smaller and smaller groups,

kettling them down the side streets.

But the men in balaclavas and face masks,

had no qualms about fighting back with considerable violence.

There's a lot of bricks that have come flying over the police line

and we're just walking along the street now with a plane overhead

and actually, you can see where they've been scavenging bricks from,

from a bit of an old building here,

and they've ripped part of the seams

and they're throwing those bricks over at the police.

So, as we were just running then, there was an incoming brick

and I kind of leapt over it and carried on running,

but the police took a real hail of bricks there.

One man had a rucksack full of smoke bombs

and was handing them out to masked youths

who surged back into the crowd, cheered on by their girlfriends.

As far as I can see, which is about, I would say,

a quarter of a kilometre either way,

and you can hear the police plane overhead,

which is circling, but the numbers on the streets now,

and there's rubble as we walk through it

and there are cones scattered across the ground

and there are...

Those street scooters which people have picked up and thrown

and they're just strewn across the road here.

And still the fights go on.

A police van was set alight.

The perpetrator later sentenced to two years and five months in jail.

Here in Liverpool and across the country,

police were violently attacked,

with almost 300 of them injured.

There's an injured police officer here.

Is he all right?

Do you remember when the guy blown the tree?

There's an injured police officer here

with three police officers around her

and she's propped up against a building

and she's surrounded by a group of guys

with uni jacks and the flag of St George.

She's conscious, but she looks as though she's in quite a lot of pain.

And people are standing there, laughing, gloating,

threatening her more, cheering and taking her picture.

I've never seen anything like it. You can hear them.

There was little hope of medical assistance.

The street was blocked end to end.

Her colleagues were squatting around her,

in a protective ring, shields out, but massively outnumbered.

They're struggling to get an injured policewoman

out of the way of protesters who are intent on hurting her more.

It's absolutely extraordinary.

I've been to a lot of protests in the last 20 or 30 years.

I've never seen vitriol against the police like this in my life.

Amazingly, there were still civilians trapped in cars,

tourists sheltering in the Tate Gallery,

and disorientated shoppers in huddles.

Just a load of thugs jumping on the bandwagon over the people's grief.

It really is.

And it's frightening, you know. It's beyond belief.

Martin was in his holiday best,

out for a meal in the city with his partner when all of this happened.

He's retired, but used to work in manufacturing down at Ellesmere Port.

And he's from the same area as the Southport suspect.

I've seen what they're doing to police members,

there's an injured policewoman on the ground there.

Yeah.

And they're surrounding her and shooting her.

She'll be arrested.

But they're outnumbered, aren't they, the police?

And I feel sorry for them.

Some of those police have attended that stabbing dance class,

and then they come out and get faced with this anarchy.

That's what it is.

Why are the police the target here?

Because they've got no-one else to vent their anger on.

Have you ever seen anything like it?

Not in my lifetime, no.

Definitely not.

I'm 73 years of age.

It's a total lack of respect.

People have got no respect for the police or anything.

Schoolteachers, you name it.

It's right across society.

He called over his bewildered partner, Jackie.

I think it's disgusting, especially the girl who were going, that lady.

You know, she's lying there injured, two of them.

And, you know, earlier on, when it was peaceful, it was fine,

and now I think all loads of kids have joined and stuff.

I don't even think they know what's going on.

I don't even think they know why they're here or what they're writing about us.

They really don't.

But Liverpool will be on the map for their own reasons again tonight.

You're clearly really upset by this.

Yeah, I was petrified earlier on.

Down there, there was a stampede, and we had to run up steps, didn't we?

Out the way, yeah.

I'm shaking a bit, actually.

I can see you shaking.

By evening, the crowd had dispersed.

Later that night, across town, another outburst of violence.

A community library was torched in nearby Walton.

Two weeks later, we returned to Merseyside.

I'm just walking along County Road,

a once buzzing high street that cuts through Walton,

and in front of me is the Spello Library,

which was pelted with bricks and set on fire.

It's still boarded up, and it's a symbol, really,

of the deep divisions that still exist in this community.

Walton is another less well-off, predominantly white area of Liverpool,

a city that's seen the number of asylum seekers

rise by almost 50% in two years.

Liverpool's also the only city in England

where failed asylum seekers must travel

to lodge a final appeal to stay in the country.

More evidence for some, the areas being singled out by politicians in London.

These are some of the back streets where the rioters fled.

And there are rows and rows of back-to-back Victorian terraces along here.

And I can see Goodison Park, which is where Everton football team play.

And today, really, it's a case of the calm after the storm.

There are pensioners out here sunning themselves in deck chairs on the street.

Front doors are left wide open,

and there's a young woman who's helping her pensioner neighbour up some steps.

Not legal immigration, just the ones that aren't vetted and checked

and that are coming on boats and stuff like that on the borders.

But anybody that's come here to seek actual asylum, that's fair enough.

Laura is a young mum, cheerful and careful not to offend.

She says she used to see herself as left-wing until she moved here.

There's a lot of people now that are non-English-speaking,

so when they come into these communities, they're not really integrating with us.

That's the opinion of some people.

I'm worried about the lack of housing for people.

I'm worried about the lack of services, some mental health services

and other services across the board.

Now the likes of our library, what's going to happen?

Some people are feeling a bit like second-class citizens

because there's just not enough to...

It doesn't seem like there's enough houses for everybody,

but yet every time someone new moves in, it won't really be an English person.

That's just something that I've noticed.

When you look at me, you look slightly embarrassed when you say it.

You can't say anything nowadays without being labelled as either far left or far right.

I'm just sitting in the centre.

I just want what's humane for people.

While the city's asylum seeker population has risen,

other parts of the country are receiving far fewer.

Government figures show that as of June, Liverpool had around 2,400 asylum seekers,

but Winchester had just eight.

Bath, three, and large areas of the south of England had no asylum seekers at all.

You need to be able to discuss issues that people find polarising and divisive

about issues of identity, immigration, asylum.

Race relations and so on.

Avoidance means that things can bubble up and curdle because they're not expressed.

There's no catharsis there.

But if you can't have this debate about where are legitimate concerns

and which concerns are illegitimate,

you can't do the thing that actually 80% of people want to do,

which is debate change in your society, immigration, integration,

how to handle it well, while having boundaries against racism, intolerance, hatred and violence.

But that can't be at the price of being indifferent or soft to racist violence

because there are legitimate concerns for minorities in this country

about feeling safe, having an equal voice.

A few doors down from the Torch Library in Walton,

we found afternoon drinkers arriving at the local pub.

As soon as we mentioned the riots,

they refer us to the hotel in Kirby that housed asylum seekers.

You see people on the streets who were born and bred there, yeah?

Yeah.

You see migrants in five-star hotels.

So, you know, where's the logic in that?

They're not looking after their own people,

but they look after everyone else.

You've got to look after your own people before anyone else.

Before what happened in Southport, I said,

something's going to kick off here because they're letting too many in

and all the streets around here now, they're just full of them.

They're taking over.

And, like, another five, ten years, we're getting pushed out.

We are getting pushed out.

The government's bringing them in and just putting them in areas

and they're just destroying all the areas.

You know, if this was, like, a post place like Fulham,

they wouldn't put anyone here.

In the days after the riots, a YouGov poll found that almost 60% of Britons

had sympathy with those taking part in the peaceful side of the protests

and one in ten thought the disorder was justified.

The new Labour government told us it plans to reduce

and ultimately end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.

But added that no-one should be making excuses

for those engaged in thuggery, criminality and racism.

Sundar Katwala again.

The debate about the underlying causes and how to tackle them

is more politically contested.

Some people say it's the level of immigration.

Some people say it's the handling of asylum.

Some people say it's socio-economic disadvantage in left-behind towns.

I think the causes of disorder are complex,

but it's not the only one.

Partly they're the underlying drivers of fear, hatred and prejudice,

and that is about the social distance between groups in our society.

Liverpool's calm again now,

more culprits being jailed around the country every day.

It seems to have quelled the rioting for now,

but the root causes haven't gone away.

We've got a society that is much more diverse than it was.

We've dealt with that quite well in the long term.

We haven't rolled up our sleeves and had a plan to make that work better.

And when the pace of change speeds up,

when technology changes the way people hear about things,

you've got to do more work on managing diversity in a changing society

if you want it to work well for people who come to this country

and the communities they join.

There remain tensions and division in some of these communities

that have been building over many years

concerning race, diversity and broad aspects of social policy.

The jailings have silenced the hatred for now,

but these deep-rooted issues will take time,

understanding and political determination to resolve.

It's time we moved to a new place.

A new beginning.

With the help of the BBC's Radio 4 music and podcasts.

From BBC Radio 4, 11 Minutes Dead.

A paranormal thriller about near-death experience.

We once believed death occurred at the exact moment the heart stopped beating.

Sammy, where are you going?

We now know this is not true.

You don't deserve a daughter, so I will come and take her away.

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