Rioting

Are you watching FOX news?

Watch BBC, CNN or MSNBC instead.

I was visiting London in November 2015. The day after the horrific attack in Paris I assumed I’d see more police out and about.

Nope. Finally asked an officer near Kensington Palace if there was a terrorism concern.

His reply “ we are always on alert for terrorism, it’s London.”

It’s my favorite city in the world. Unless it’s destroyed by a meteorite I’ll be there in the Fall.

Oh and I travel solo. Born when Truman was President.

The rioting is long over across the UK. It was just a few days of madness.

At no stage was it really widespread, and at no stage was it of any real concern to the tourist. It was pockets of easily avoidable unrest,

Yes all quiet now. Hopefully for the foreseeable future. I have a myriad of opinions on the subject, far too political to cover here on this forum.

If you want to get information from the UK a quick thumbnail guide would be something like this -

On the left you've got The Guardian and possibly news broadcasts from Channel 4 (Channel 4 News on Youtube)

In the centre, you've got the BBC.

On the right, you've got Sky News, Mail Online, The Sun, TalkTV and GBNews. Roughly in order left to right.

There are many more independent creators on Youtube, on both ends of the spectrum, who you can choose for yourself. Just get your thinking head on to be able to filter for bias as you think you need to.

If you watch a lot of Youtube, you'll notice any video with any sort of political content has comments from many who lean to the right. Just going by the numbers that turned out post-riots to condemn fascism and racism, the Youtube commenter-type are a noisy minority, however much they claim otherwise.

London is quiet. No problems. There are protests in central London pretty much every weekend, but they don't seem to cause any problems as such, certainly no violence. Most are in support of ceasefire in Palestine, but the animal rights folks were out last weekend too. They blockaded a couple of steak places for an hour or two last Saturday; noisy but non-violent from what I've seen reported.

It's probably a fair shout that visitors to London might see this sort of thing at the moment [edit: even if I'm personally a bit embarrassed if it inconveniences anyone from RSE's vacation], especially on a Saturday or Sunday. Nobody's causing any real trouble, if you support the right to noisy protest, possibly saying things you don't agree with. The Met Police have been quite firm with anything that crosses the line into hate speech or incitement.

Andrew can wade in and edit that if he needs to. I never claim to be totally neutral when I wander into politics here. I'm at over 1000 posts, so anyone who's been reading my posts regularly can take my little guide with the necessary pinch of salt according to how they've read other posts.

Well, I live in Atlanta and have seen riots in Europe and riots in the United States. I’ll go to Europe. I’ve never seen anyone feel the need to bring an AK-47 to a riot in Europe, but we do that here in Atlanta because after all, what’s a riot if you don’t have to bring your automatic weapon to kill people

Sometimes we need to realize it’s not more dangerous there than here and it may be even safer

London is quiet. No problems.

Tell that to the 11-year old Australian tourist who was the victim of a stabbing attack in Leicester Square last week.

That was awful. I wouldn't like to think a terrible incident like that represents London in the way I've been talking about though. Quoting me somewhat out of the context of the OP's question. A brave worker from a nearby business disarmed the attacker and police were on the scene to arrest the person within three or four minutes if I recall correctly. It was truly awful though.

While I would have never thought that rioting would spread across the UK due to a tragic attack, misinformation, social media, strong anti-immigrant sentiment and frankly racism, I still think it extremely unlikely to poises a substantial risk for tourists. Shark attacks are horrible and rare and really shouldn't keep people from swimming-- but it is natural that it does after an incident.

I wouldn't cancel any planned trip to the UK and would encourage people to look at the UK 's low violent crime rate.

Happy travels.

In London, your bus may end up on diversion. If you end up on a bus on diversion because of civil unrest, strain to hear the driver as they make an announcement, then have absolutely no clue what they said. That's what most locals do.

This was back in April, but there were several demonstrations happening in parts of London. There was a large crowd at Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery museum one day, but it was orderly, and police were present. Another day when I was at the Horse Guards museum, an employee came up and said they were closing early that afternoon because the police had alerted them of a protest several blocks away (by the tower with Big Ben), and as a precaution, visitors were being asked nicely to please leave. The protest didn’t come any closer, and the London police kept everything under control. No riots, and no worries.

"Tell that to the 11-year old Australian tourist who was the victim of a stabbing attack in Leicester Square last week."

Which while awful has absolutely nothing to do with the original question, which was about the riots. And I would have no hesitation in visiting London now pr at any other time. The safety issues are no different from an Australian city.

GerryM an intelligent response, that I think fits the guidelines. Thank you.

I appreciate all the feedback. I feel confident in visiting London this fall. Thanks all!

Gerry, thanks for your thoughts. I like to read the perspectives of those who live there, and I certainly respect your ideas. The stabbing of a young boy was horrific, but it sounds like the actions of the police were appropriate and quick. And FWIW, I don't there is a city in the entire world that doesn't have violence. It's what we do in those situations that counts.

There were no riots in London. The rioting happened in deprived, poor white areas where concern about immigration was the flashpoint. London is multicultural and doesn’t have areas with this demographic so the impetus for the unrest isn’t there in the same way.

There was a little bit of trouble in London, three weeks ago now I think. There was a bit of physical confrontation with the police in Whitehall. The police issue these timed "dispersal notices" these days and I think around 100 people were arrested when they wouldn't go home. Most, if not all, were released without any charges within an hour or so.

GerryM thank you again. Speaking the truth never hurts, but people need to put things in context too. Its hard to find a major city in the US or Europe these days that doesnt have something like this almost every week.

At the time I heard some talk that some countries (I didn't hear which) were advising against travel to the UK- whichever they were that was seriously alarmist and was just plain overkill.

It is not surprising that this is at least the 3rd enquiry on this subject- much was made of it at the time, but the worldwide news media have not reported that it was only a few days. Interestingly the disturbances were not really quelled by police action it seems, but by a peaceful counter protests by the majority who were against those perpetrating the riots.

Even I was advised to be careful by friends when I went to London and Glasgow (on successive days) at the height of the trouble which felt like heavily overstating the issue. Even if I had run into anything (very unlikely) I know both cities more than well enough to quickly turn tail and take a different route.

London is a bit safer in terms of the violence we've seen elsewhere. Multiculturalism is working pretty much ok here. The level of solidarity within the working class and lower middle class of all colours and creeds is much higher in London than it might be in the places we saw trouble up north, if you can allow me to be all lefty about it.

The riot here in Hull was embarrassing and for myself and 95% of the population an insult to the people of Hull. It was mainly instigated and continued by a bunch of idiots that will hopefully be punished severely with little sympathy from most of us in Hull.

"heard some talk that some countries (I didn't hear which) were advising against travel to the UK"

Actually I don't think anyone advised against travel. Several countries, including Australia, Hong Kong and Indonesia to name a few, updated travel advisories, but I can't think of any country that warned against travel. For example, Australia's advisory says:

"Avoid areas where protests are occurring due to the potential for disruption and violence.'

If you read the US State Department warnings you can’t go anywhere

Here’s what they say about the UK

Exercise increased caution in the United Kingdom due to terrorism.

Finding someplace they think is safe is pretty hard. I checked most places in Europe. Go to Greece and Portugal. Every place is dangerous!

The UK is a bit of a generalisation too. The problems around the rioting are English issues for the most part. There would be very little chance of trouble motivated by the same issues in Scotland. It's different culturally at the moment. What did concern me a little was the level of disturbance in Belfast. It's even more fractured there because of the splits down sectarian lines too.

If you read the US State Department warnings you can’t go anywhere

The State Department actually should recommend everyone move to France based upon their current "warnings" and the rationale behind them.

I was speaking to my neighbour last night. He's just back in London after visiting with his in-laws in a suburb of Birmingham for a few weeks. He was quite alarmed at the height of the riots. They'd heard on social media that there was plans to attack the mosque and some of his neighbours up there turned out to defend it. He stayed home, but he was quite scared of people ending up in his street looking for muslims, both for the safety of his family and by the fact his car was parked in the street. It's quite scary when you hear about that sort of stuff from your friend and neighbour.

It's been an eye opener for sure looking in the paper and seeing reports from the courts since the riots. Even ignoring those who haven't entered pleas or not guilty pleas, the things some people have plead guilty to is quite shocking. Kids as well as grown men and women. Around 70% of people convicted already had criminal records but I'm not entirely sure locking people up helps that much in the long run. Prison looks good to the public in the news, but it also has the potential to make people worse than they were when they went in too.

There's only so much a government can do to counter entrenched thinking. A lot of people seem to have got totally the wrong end of the stick when it comes to pinning down the issues that make them poor or wait too long for a doctor's appointment, in my opinion. There isn't really the public funds around at the moment to invest in helping make ordinary people's lives better through improving access to affordable housing, social services etc. It's difficult to demonstrate that it's not the immigrant or the muslim's fault without being able to offer people tangible evidence. Kinda stuck with this right wing problem at the moment imho.

I can't be absolutely sure the civil unrest is over either. Nothing's been solved politically. It's going to be a lot more difficult to organise and have people turn out now though. The strength in numbers of people out to counter made a big difference. The police were fairly restrained throughout I thought. No members of the public were seriously injured as far as I know. If that policy changed we'd be in a bit of trouble I think. One potential flashpoint I can see looming is when one of the figureheads of the far right movement sets foot back in the country. It's absolutely inevitable that he's going to be arrested and remanded on charges going back to before the riots. I wouldn't be at all surprised if The Crown has charges connected to the riots up their sleeve for him too.

One area to avoid if in London this coming weekend (24/08) is the Notting Hill area where the annual Notting Hill Carnival will take place.

Homes and business premises are already in the process of being boarded up and the police are gearing up for anticipated trouble, last year saw 308 arrests, 75 police officers assaulted and 8 people stabbed so a weekend of disorder is once again on the cards and it really is an area best avoided.

If you read the US State Department warnings you can’t go anywhere

The State Department actually should recommend everyone move to France
based upon their current "warnings" and the rationale behind them.

I always assume they heard something that I havent, even though being a RS forum member, like you, we remain among the most informed people on earth.

Maybe 1 in 500 of those pan out, but the first time something happens and the State Department didn’t warn, then you are going to be all over them for that.

So what would your solution be? Easy to criticize. Do you want the job of choosing what to publish and what not to?

And I don’t think they said the UK wasn’t safe. On a scale of 1 to 4 they put it at 2. Basically keep your eyes open. That or more should probably the level for the whole world right now.

One of the immigration solicitors' offices that was on the far-right target list is in my local area - massive peaceful demonstration by anti-racist local residents and no sign of any fascists.

Living in Washington DC, I’ve learned that there is a difference between rioting and protesting. Protesting means you get an email alert that certain streets are closed because of “first amendment activity.” Riots send loud alerts to your devices with warnings to stay in and that curfews are in place. In 11 years I’ve only seen the latter once but regularly receive the former.

The US State Department's messages is not "WARNING DON'T GO TO . . . " It's usually a very calm "exercise caution" Thats not wrong anywhere. The reference to terrorism is the politically approved holdover language from the days when al Qaeda was officially the greatest threat and we endlessly debated red versus amber alerts.

Thanks GerryM, very interesting and I'd agree that Carnival is part of London's cultural environment (and history). And violence is limited considering the size of the crowd.

London is big. They have, as said already, been dealing with terrorism for decades. It is extremely unlikely that you will find yourself in a bad situation. There are always some sort of protest going on, usually around Big Ben/house of parliament, but you can just cross the road if you don't want to participate (!). Certain neighbourhoods are worse at night, when the druggies come out from under their rocks, and the boisterous pub people exit at closing time, but again it is unlikely you will encounter problems. I just got back from the UK last week, and had no "social" issues at all. Other cities have more obvious poverty/drug/alcohol problems, but London is fairly safe, even after dark.

I got back from the UK a few days ago, and had no problems. Not surprisingly, a number of rumors of upcoming riots were going around (perhaps based on real threats) and worrying some of the locals. A young server at a restaurant in a large Berkshire town told us she was worried about protests on the street where she lives that she had heard were planned for the next few days (nothing seems to have taken place; this was early-to-mid August). And a docent at a National Trust property in Northamptonshire said she had tickets to a play that was cancelled because of safety concerns. There was startling violence in the early days, confined mostly to the areas mentioned above in earlier posts, but the threat of violence seems to have lingered for a week or so while the protests/riots were winding down. We saw a nice counter-protest march in downtown Oxford.