Race riots in the UK left women squeezed between the far right and patriarchy

Blog by Pragna Patel, originally published on the LSE Website

Anti-immigration activists in the UK mobilise around the perceived threat to women and girls. Pragna Patel shows how the riots were also used by religious and community forces to maintain patriarchal structures of power and control.

The UK has experienced a series of far-right protests following the tragic murder of Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe in Southport in August 2024. Their killer, British-born Axel Rudakubana, has since been jailed for a minimum of 52 years. But in the immediate aftermath, waves of online disinformation that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker. This was inflamed by the right-wing media and politicians.

What has been particularly disturbing is the explicit attempt by the far right to “justify” attacks on migrants and the spread of racial hatred in the name of “opposition” to violence against women and girls. The calls to “protect our women” or “save our girls” are rapidly gaining traction amongst ordinary parents who claim that they are not racist, “but” are concerned about violence against women and the safety of their daughters. 

The instrumentalisation of violence against women by the far-right is not a new phenomenon. The myth of hypersexualised black males as sexual predators has been a trope from the times of slavery to the present day. This racial stereotyping is now being turned on Muslims, migrants, and refugees. In the UK, these myths have gathered pace in the aftermath of the Southport killings and the recent sexual grooming cases involving Asian men who preyed upon vulnerable young white girls.

There is a deep irony in the use of these dangerous racial narratives for two key reasons: First, unfortunately, gender-based abuse is prevalent in all communities. Secondly, many of the far-right rioters are themselves guilty of domestic abuse.

Few commentators on these events have acknowledged or addressed the complex ways in which growing misogyny – and an anti-women’s rights agenda – intersects with racist, nationalist and ultra-conservative religious ideologies and far-right populism.

Recent research conducted by Project Resist and the Angelou Centre carried out interviews with vulnerable black, minoritised and migrant women and girls and the organisations that support them. The report examined the impact of the 2024 far-right violence on women’s lives, particularly those in the post-industrial heartlands of the UK: areas which have seen an unprecedented surge in right-leaning populism over the past decade.

The findings reveal the multifaceted ways in which racism and racial violence are experienced as a gendered phenomenon. Women spoke of the ways in which the riots impacted on their individual sense of safety, freedom of movement and well-being in public spaces. But they also described how their autonomy and security were compromised by greater patriarchal control in the private sphere: women and girls were frequently told not to go out for their own “safety” and “protection” because of the very same riots. The resultant double jeopardy in which they found themselves formed a significant theme of the research.

“Some male community and faith leaders here are taking advantage of the far-right riots by taking control of the story and ignoring the needs of our women. They are using it to stop women from leaving the house by saying they are protecting women by controlling them.” (Resist Network Member)

“Young women were being told, ‘See you shouldn’t go out’. Patriarchs are using this to control and threaten young women. There’s a crackdown on them; women and children weren’t able to go out. But the police hadn’t said that people should stay at home.” (Staff Member)

The social control and surveillance experienced by women were compounded by local authority responses to the racist violence. Many local councils and police forces chose to heed male-dominated community and religious institutions, prioritising their safety and security over the needs of women’s centres and shelters that provided safe exit routes from domestic abuse. Consequently, individual women were forced to make difficult choices between staying at home to endure gender-based violence or leaving home to risk racial violence. At the same time, women’s organisations found themselves completely sidelined and unprotected by both the state and community leadership.

“The men in the communities are listening to the religious leaders, we know that. But now we have the local authorities and the police also just following what they say. No one came to us to ask us if we needed safety support, or whether our women were safe – even though we have a refuge and get threats from men and the community.” (Resist Network Member)

“In (Rochdale) we get no support from the local authority, the police or any local agencies. The religious leaders made a complaint, and police got in touch, but no one understood the threats to women’s organisations. We were left out of discussions about safety, whereas discussions with mosque leaders continued.” (Asian women’s organisation in the North West)

The marginalisation of black and minoritised women continued in the wake of the riots as local authorities drew up plans and made funds available to aid recovery and rebuild community cohesion. Women’s organisations yet again found themselves excluded from meetings and consultations, a situation that only served to further legitimise and consolidate the role of male leaders as community power brokers. Few, if any, of these individuals had any history or interest in engaging in genuine long-term anti-racist work that also empowered and supported women:

“Also, the police and local authorities or services they run about after the community leaders like they can solve the racism. I mean, what have they done so far to help? They haven’t included any women in these discussions, they haven’t invested in us or supported us, they do make referrals, but even then, only sometimes. The men from authorities talk to men from communities, women are sidelined, and this is dangerous.” (Resist Network Member)

Anti-racist mobilisations with their slogans of support and solidarity effectively stopped the riots; they also created environments that some women found unsafe. Participants commented on how community-driven anti-racist protests were dominated by young men who were drawn towards religious sloganeering, extreme misogynist ideologies, and ‘bro-culture’ dynamics that made women uncomfortable, given that these same undercurrents also produce the breeding ground for violence against women. They were keenly aware of how the framing of anti-racist resistance in religious terms reinforced a very conservative and sectarian form of identity that had profound implications for their right to exercise choice and control over their own lives.

The findings of our research highlight how the weaponisation of violence against women in the mobilisation of racial hatred by the far right represents only one side of the coin; the other side concerns the use of the far-right riots by religious and community forces to maintain patriarchal structures of power and control. Black and minoritised women are effectively squeezed between the forces of the far right and patriarchy.

These findings point to the urgent need to apply a gendered lens to the far-right riots: an approach that necessitates an exploration of the connections and mirror reflections between far-right ideology and hyper-mobilised forms of public racism on the one hand and the ideology of patriarchal social control shaped by religious extremism on the other.  On both “sides”, we find misogyny and violence against women, against the backdrop of wider socio-economic inequality. Our failure to make these links imperils not only the feminist project on violence against women but also the wider anti-racist struggle itself.