By Francisco Santos

Within the greater context of the U.K. riots, Nottingham’s protests were seen as quite tame, but it would be wrong to call it unaffected, so in what way were the city and its communities impacted?

Nottingham was still home to its fair share of crimes that originated from the riots with 15 arrests being made on August third, the day of the protests, followed by eight people being charged.

The charges varied from possession of a class B drug to assaulting an emergency worker, however there was a standout of which six of the eight people were charged with, that being section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 which relates to the use of threatening words or behaviour that establishes an offence of fear or provocation of violence.

While still serious offences, these seem toned down in comparison to other cities where they varied from violent disorder, burglary, and attempted arson.

One of the possible reasons for Nottingham’s subdued demonstrations is the large amount of support by counter-protesters showing up in numbers.

Not long after the far-right protest plans were announced the organisation Stand Up To Racism started planning counter-protests, including the Nottingham branch (NSUTR) which started its protest one hour prior to the far-right one in the Market Square.

Cheryl Rousanville, an active member of NSUTR for about three years, had the following to say about it: “I think we got the message across to them, that there are more of us anti-racist than there are far-right fascists and racists.”

“We didn’t have trouble getting people out, I think that the good people of Nottingham that are anti-racist, were looking for ‘How can I help?’, ‘Where can I go?, ‘How can I demonstrate?’ so it was quite easy to get that many people out for those counter-protests.”

And in commenting about what communities are affected, Richard Buckwell who has been a joint-secretary of NSUTR for about five years, says: “It’s not just asylum seekers, it’s migrants who are here quite legitimately and people who have probably even got British citizenship.”

“In the riot in Hull a group of Romanians was pulled out of their car and attacked simply because they didn’t look white-british. How do you tell who is British and who is not, it becomes a question of skin colour or looking different.”

Rousanville adds to this by sharing: “My nieces were adopted from China so what I want to do is try to work towards a world where they don’t have to put up with racism anymore, but we have a long way to go unfortunately, as these riots showed.”

“There’s a lot of people that just don’t understand that some of these far-right parties are just using migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to divide people, they’re blaming them for things when the blame shouldn’t be on them, the blame should be on the government, all the austerity and not taxing rich people more.”

With sentences continuing to come out more than a month after the beginning of the riots, Buckwell adds: “Those people that have been sentenced, I don’t think it’s going to change their minds at all, they’re gonna come out more embittered, that’s what frightens me.”

“Unless you change the conditions of austerity, giving them a sentence – although they’ve done some really horrible things and deserve to be punished – they’re not gonna come out with changed minds.”

Adding: “A lot of climate change activists who haven’t caused any violence at all – but they cause disruption – they’ve had really long sentences, there are a number of people in prison for 4-5 years who have been responsible for no violence at all.”

Rousanville presents a different angle of looking at the sentences, saying: “I think it has made a difference in quelling the recent violence, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

“I mean, will these people serve a lot of time, they may be let go early because of the overcrowding in prisons. But I think it was good that they got long sentences to show the seriousness of what they did.”

“What the far-right did during these riots was terrorism, so they should get equivalent sentences to other terrorists, but only a few of them got really long ones. When you set a hotel on fire with people inside of it, is that not terrorism?”

Both members of NSUTR also look forward to the future, sharing some upcoming events and protests for the organisation nationwide, with a protest against Reform’s Birmingham conference taking place across the midlands on the 20th of September.

Also talking about another protest happening on the 26th of October in London, against Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, and a collaboration with Rock Against Racism Nottingham on the 23rd of November.

However, the main focus of the members at the moment seems to be getting more people from younger generations involved, with Rousanville saying: “We welcome everybody to come join the group, we don’t care where you’re from, what you’re doing, as long as you’re anti-racist come work with us, we need you and we need allies to help.”

Even with counter-protesters outnumbering the far-right mobilisers, the effects of their convergence was still felt by the local community.

Ross Bradshaw, owner of the city centre located Five Leaves Bookshop, had the following to say when asked about how the shop felt in the lead up to the protest: “Our view is we keep calm and carry on…”

Adding: “We stayed open, but increased our staffing on the day of the far-right demonstration and the subsequent Saturday. In the morning we were noticeably busier and the afternoon noticeably quieter than normal.”

“Some of our team were on the counter demonstrations, as were many of our customers of course. A few asked us if we wanted special support that day, which was kind, but we knew that far right had other people in mind…”

He then goes on to describe the long and prevalent history of far-right rioters targeting bookshops, saying: “During the Pride season last year a number of independent bookshops were getting pressure, and in the 1980s left bookshops were regularly physically attacked, including, in Nottingham, Mushroom Bookshop which was trashed by fifty fascists. And in 2023 someone went to jail in Nottingham for preparing to commit an act of terror – planning to set fire to this place.”

Despite all of this the finishing remarks still carry some positivity, ending with: “These days most bookshops will carry LGBT+ books, support Black Lives Matter and are generally bastions against the right, so left wing bookshops stand out less than we used to! And our trade group, the Booksellers Association, is hugely supportive to the trade backing diversity.”

Although it seems as if most of the riots are over more than a month after they started, it is imperative to understand their roots in order to avoid something similar from happening in the future.

Sociologist and NTU Associate Professor Ricky Gee, shares: “When you’ve had 14 years of austerity and cutting back of public services, when people are experiencing public services that are crumbling or just aren’t effectively funded and therefore can’t support people in a way in which they have become accustomed, then if you’re having very, very rich media outlets who are promoting that the root cause of these problems is my migration or illegal migration, at some point that rhetoric sticks on a group of people.”

And in commenting on how he believes the groups targeted were affected he adds: “When we look at asylum seekers, we’re talking about very vulnerable people already, we are talking about people who have experienced really difficult, traumatic experiences already and have come to the UK for a better life.

“Then you’ve got one of the most vulnerable groups within society already being demonised and being stigmatised. I would imagine they feel very scared and vulnerable, even more scared and even more vulnerable than they already were before this flamed up.”

Finally, when talking about possible solutions and preventative measures he says: “I think this is where looking at Marx becomes useful – it’s dependent on the shape of the economy, it’s dependent on people’s material conditions. So if people’s material conditions have been hit, if people are struggling, if people don’t feel like their lives are going anywhere materially, if they are struggling to provide for their family, then they will be angry and they will be looking to vent their anger in a particular direction.

“So if they are being told on a daily basis via mainstream media or legacy media, these are the people you need to blame, then this ‘othering’ will continue to perpetuate. This will only dampen down once we see economic growth and people’s material conditions improve.”