Two Years Since Southport: Far-Right Terrorism is the ‘New Normal’

Two years ago this August, the UK experienced its worst racist disorder in over a decade, after online disinformation wrongly blamed a Muslim asylum seeker for the murder of three children in Southport. Over the course of just nine days, 29 riots erupted across 27 towns and cities. Mosques were attacked, hotels housing asylum seekers were set alight, and Muslim communities across the country were left afraid to go about their daily lives. Two years on, the anniversary should be a moment to take stock of what has changed. Instead, the targeting of Muslim communities has become increasingly systematic and widespread, suggesting the picture has become worse, not better. 

Surging Anti-Muslim Hatred 

In June 2026 alone, a shirtless man, Lewis Hawkes, stabbed five Muslims in Edinburgh, two of them just after leaving prayers, reportedly shouting that he was “protecting the country from these f****** Muslim b******* raping our daughters.” Days earlier, masked men in Belfast circulated a hit list of addresses and set fire to migrant homes and businesses. In July, a planned terror attack at a UK Itjima event in Suffolk was foiled by counter-terror police. These were not isolated incidents. They form part of a wider pattern of far-right terrorism targeting Muslim communities, one that shows no sign of abating two years after Southport. 

Muslim community institutions continue to bear the brunt. According to the British Muslim Trust, a mosque in the UK has been attacked on average once every five days over the past year, with more than 70 incidents recorded nationwide. The government’s Protective Security for Mosques Scheme is meant to help, but its criteria are excessively narrow; they require mosques to demonstrate a documented history of attacks rather than assessing current risk. This leaves many institutions unable to afford basic measures such as CCTV, fencing or secure door locking. In fact, recent survey data from Muslim Census and Mend reveals that a staggering 96% of mosques have failed to secure protective funding. Backlogs in application processing has meant some mosques are waiting not months, but up to two years for a response, with no updates and no clear point of contact at the Home Office. Consequently, Muslim institutions are left without essential protections, with government support lagging far behind the scale of threat. 

Far-right terrorism is also placing growing pressure on the charities that serve Muslim and marginalised communities. New research from the Charity Commission illustrates that a quarter of registered charities have been affected by social divisions, with staff at thousands of organisations having been abused, assaulted, or received death threats. Muslim charities such as Islamic Relief UK are especially vulnerable to social media hate and vandalism due to rising anti-Muslim hostility, while in 2024, IRUK was forced to close the organisations shops and cancel events over fears that staff and beneficiaries would be targeted. However, the mosque security scheme excludes Muslim charities, schools and community centres, despite them facing similar threats to mosques. Smaller, volunteer-led organisations, in particular, lack the resources to invest in security, placing them at risk. 

Government Inaction 

Yet, the government continues to respond to anti-Muslim terrorism as though it were a series of isolated incidents, rather than a systemic challenge. Its response to the Edinburgh stabbings in June made this clear as no COBRA meeting was called, no emergency security funding for Muslim institutions was announced, and government ministers said only that the attacks “appeared” to be motivated by anti-Muslim hatred. In comparison, following the Golders Green stabbings in which two Jewish men and a Muslim man were injured, the Prime Minister convened a COBRA meeting that same evening and an emergency roundtable the following day. 

This sends a deeply worrying message that Muslim safety and security do not warrant the urgency they deserve. But this is not new. Keir Starmer was criticised for failing to label the 2024 riots as Islamophobic, and Labour’s own National Executive Committee member Mish Rahman accused the party of a double standard, warning that the reluctance to use the word terrorism “suggests… it is terrorism when only committed by a Muslim”. Muslim leaders have also criticised the official Southport Inquiry for excluding the 2024 riots from its scope entirely, despite the clear link between disorder and disinformation that the inquiry was established to examine. Until ministers label far-right terrorism targeting Muslim communities, and acknowledge it for what it is, they will not be able to tackle it effectively. 

Looking Ahead 

Two years on from Southport, coordinated violence against Muslim communities has become the new normal. Far-right terrorism has become more organised and frequent, targeting Muslim individuals, mosques, and institutions, creating a pervasive climate of fear. Yet, mosques and charities alike do not have the necessary resources to protect themselves or the communities they serve, and the government continues to fail to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves.  

MCF urges the government to take urgent steps to tackle this emergency by developing a clear action plan and taskforce for tackling far-right terrorism, revising the Protective Security for Mosques scheme, and extending support to the Muslim charities, schools and community centres currently excluded. There must be more than statements of condemnation after each attack, but meaningful, sustained government action to preserve the safety of Muslim communities so they can live with the freedom and security they deserve.