A police station was set on fire in Sunderland on Friday as officers tried to contain several hundred protesters on another night of disorder.
Video footage on social media showed flames coming from Sunderland Central police station.
Nick Lowles, from the organisation Hope Not Hate, posted a photo of the blaze on X and wrote: “A police station has been set alight in Sunderland tonight. A far right and racist protest has culminated in this. Shame on all those who continue to excuse these protests.”
The crowd, some of whom wore balaclavas, also threw beer barrels and stones at police who came under a sustained attack outside a mosque on St Mark’s Road.
An overturned car was set on fire and rioters set off fire extinguishers against officers. Northumbria police advised members of the public to avoid Sunderland city centre due to the “ongoing disorder”.
The protest, promoted by far-right activists on social media, began at the newly refurbished Keel Square. Social media footage showed young men throwing stones at the police and shouting “whose streets, our streets” as well as Islamophobic chants.
These lot are fascist tossers, but let’s be fair, you can love your country, want to see it change for (what you perceive to be) the better, and fight the establishment because of that.
Take dissident Germans in the 1940s, or those setting fire to government offices, recruitment centres etc in Russia today. They love their home and their people, and want to change it for the better, and they believe this is their best chance of doing so.
I don’t think that’s what this fascist rioting lot are up to of course, they just want to smash stuff and be dumb racists.
But I think it’s important to remember that often we rush to frame extreme acts as inherently bad or unpatriotic, because we’re on the opposite side of things, or don’t have the full context of the situation.
Especially now, as so much propaganda is pushed down our throats these days - much of it stemming from our government - about how being an “extremist” is automatically evil, and not worth reading further into.
I’m an extremist for example, because amongst other things, I have the extreme opinion that we should nationalise all essential national infrastructure (water, gas, electricity, public transport, internet infrastructure, postal service, and such).
Am I evil because I’m an extremist, or is the government just trying to paint “extremists” as evil in order to suppress opposition to their way of doing things? Hmm.
Anyway thanks for listening! :-)
The thing is though they went straight from zero to 100. Right into violent riots, there was no lead up there was no long drawn out political discourse they just went straight into setting fire to things.
And don’t call it a protest either what they did was not a protest they weren’t campaigning for change they just wanted to damage things.