Growing nationalism and perceived denial of freedoms fuelling UK riots, expert says

euronews (in English)

An expert in criminology and online extremism believes that the violent demonstrations currently gripping Britain are the product of people feeling threatened by a maelstrom of issues projected onto the "other".

Transcript

00:00A criminology expert says social media plays a role in the recent violent riots sweeping

00:07across the UK, but the real instigator is a quote latent issue.

00:12Stephanie Alice Baker from City University of London says growing unrest could be perceived

00:17to incite social tensions.

00:20You have emerging feelings of nationalism, a sense that people are being left behind,

00:28a sense that people's freedoms are being denied, the sovereignty of the nation is

00:34at stake and a lot of this really coincides with a rise of immigration and a cost of living

00:41crisis.

00:42So people have these first hand experiences of grievances and a lot of these negative

00:49feelings are projected onto another.

00:51The recent deaths of three girls sent more than a dozen UK cities into xenophobic protest.

00:57This is what we commonly see for any of us who study crowd behaviour, it's that there

01:02is always a tipping point where people feel emboldened and unable to act on those feelings

01:08and it's typically when they see others doing the same thing.

01:11Britain has been battling week long violence as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic

01:17slogans clashed with police.

01:20The disturbances have been fuelled by right wing activists spreading social media misinformation

01:25about the deadly knife attack.

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