Idea has been propagated by Tommy Robinson and others from far right but claim does not stand up to scrutiny
A man is detained by police amid far-right disorder in Middlesbrough on Sunday. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer
Amid escalating far-right violence across England and in Belfast over the past week, instigators and apologists for the rioting have sought to spread a pernicious myth: the idea that white far-right “protesters” are the victims of a “two-tier policing” system that treats them more harshly because of their race and political views.
That is an idea propagated by Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as well as Laurence Fox and various other social media demagogues in the past few days. On Monday, Nigel Farage claimed that “ever since the soft policing of the Black Lives Matter protests, the impression of two-tier policing has become widespread”.
Yvette Cooper, Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and the Met police chief, Mark Rowley, were all asked about it later in the day. Cooper, Starmer and Patel all rejected the claim; Rowley said nothing, but grabbed the reporter’s microphone.
“There are ‘tiers’ in policing response,” said Graham Wettone, who spent 30 years in frontline public order roles with the Met and is the author of a book, How to Be a Police Officer. “Of course there are – because you make operational decisions appropriate to the severity of the situation. But there are not tiers based on preference or favouritism.”
What is the origin of the claims?
Agitators point to the policing failures that allowed organised grooming gangs of predominantly Asian men to operate in Rochdale in the 2000s. They also claim the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020 were treated with kid gloves.
The Rochdale abuse was scandalously ignored by police. But the argument that it is a factor in policing today ignores major reforms to the way child sexual exploitation is treated in the region, including the addition of a specialist unit in Greater Manchester police and every Ofsted inspection since 2014 finding that Rochdale now responds to reported cases effectively.
The BLM protests were qualitatively different from the events of the past week, as disorder in the centrally organised protests was a relatively marginal feature. Draconian sentences were also handed down after the 2011 riots.
“There was actually plenty of criticism of the BLM policing for being heavy-handed,” Wettone said. “The Met used an advance of the mounted branch, one of their most impactful tactics, which I’ve only seen deployed a couple of times in my whole career, and not at any of the incidents in the last week.”
How have the claims gained traction?
Allegations of a two-tier system had gained currency even before the events of the past week, with claims about the policing of the pro-Palestinian protests in the UK since 7 October. Robert Jenrick, now a Conservative leadership candidate, claimed in March that two-tier policing had governed the police’s handling of those protests.
Meanwhile, those on the far right have claimed that the treatment of recent unrest in Harehills, Leeds, after children from a Roma family were taken into care, revealed that the police were unwilling to act when the agitators were from a minority background. And videos have circulated on social media in recent days of what are claimed to be “Asian gangs” attacking white “protesters” with impunity.
But these claims do not stand up to scrutiny, either. All of the evidence of those who attended and monitored the Gaza protests suggests that while there were pockets of disorder, the vast majority of those who attended did so peacefully. “There were arrests, and police identifying offences that have led to prosecutions,” Wettone said. “But those who stayed within the law and were respectful were rightly allowed to protest.”
Hoàn cảnh ở Harehills rất khác. “Ban đầu, nó trông giống như một cuộc gọi thông thường mà nhiều cảnh sát sẽ đến, một sự cố tại một địa chỉ có dịch vụ xã hội đang cố gắng đưa trẻ em đi,” Wettone nói. “Và sau đó, nó bùng nổ khi các cảnh sát bị tấn công. Và vì nó leo thang nhanh như thế nào, nên rút lui là chiến thuật tốt nhất.”
Một số video về "băng đảng châu Á" có vẻ là những bản ghi âm thực sự từ vài ngày qua - và đã có một cuộc đối đầu đáng lo ngại giữa phe cực hữu và một nhóm đàn ông châu Á ở Bolton. Nhưng quy mô của những sự cố này không đáng kể so với hoạt động cực hữu của tuần qua, và không biện minh cho các tiêu đề đóng khung các sự kiện của Chủ Nhật như các cuộc đụng độ ngang bằng giữa hai bên . "Rõ ràng là đã có một số sự cố", Wettone nói. "Nhưng có vẻ như chúng không được lên kế hoạch trước theo cùng một cách".
