Thousands of demonstrators protest against far-right rioters across the UK
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00:00Well, we're going to cross now to London, speak to Professor of Politics at Queen Mary
00:03University London, co-director of the Myerland Institute and deputy director of the think
00:08tank, The UK, a Changing Europe. Tim Bale, thanks very much for joining us on the programme
00:13today. So yesterday, the police were gearing up, weren't they, for more far-right trouble.
00:18In the end, a real turnaround in fortunes.
00:21Yes, I mean, there is some doubt as to whether this list of targets that was circulated was
00:28actually real or whether it was some kind of hoax. But certainly it did bring out a
00:33lot of counter-protesters, as they call themselves, making it very clear that as far as they were
00:39concerned, they were in the majority rather than the far-right thugs who have so far grabbed
00:44most of the headlines.
00:45Yeah, we did get some sentencing yesterday during the day, didn't we, of three people,
00:50one going to prison for three years. I mean, might that have deterred as well those far-right
00:54demonstrations?
00:55I think that's certainly what the government will hope. Keir Starmer, obviously the prime
00:59minister, used to be director of public prosecutions and was heavily involved in the
01:04policing of riots in 2011, or the justice system's response to them. And then the same
01:12thing occurred, really, very swift and actually pretty harsh justice for those who were
01:17involved. And it's very clear that the government seems to have achieved the cooperation of
01:22the media in publicising a lot of these sentences. There will be more today, and that may
01:28well have put off some people from coming onto the streets to demonstrate against
01:33immigration.
01:35Do you think the problem then has gone away, or do you think in reality, actually, the
01:38far-right is still very much on the rise in the UK?
01:43Well, I mean, I think the government has to be very careful that it doesn't signal mission
01:48accomplished in this. We've got a weekend coming up. It's still August. It's still warm.
01:52People are still drinking a lot and maybe taking drugs as well. And there is an element of
01:57football hooliganism-related violence in all this. I think it is true to say, obviously, there
02:05are some extremists instigating this. They won't go away. They are keen, obviously, on
02:12promoting their Islamophobic and anti-immigration message. They're a very small
02:17minority. But with social media, of course, their message gets amplified quite easily. And
02:21one can go away with the impression that large numbers of people agree with them, when
02:26actually, opinion polling suggests that they are, as I say, a very, very small minority of the
02:31country.
02:32Yeah. How much do you think then that social media is the problem here?
02:36It's certainly a problem. I mean, I think anyone who suggests that it's the problem is
02:41probably fooling themselves. Clearly, there is an undercurrent in this country of
02:47Islamophobia and anti-immigration feeling is pretty widespread, not just confined to the far
02:54right. But certainly, I think the government has got a problem in the sense that it's
02:58actually quite difficult to control these very large tech platforms who have an interest in
03:05the sort of content that encourages people to carry on clicking on to them. There is a very,
03:14very difficult dilemma for governments there. They do want to maintain free speech. They do
03:19want, obviously, to be able to get their messages out on these platforms. But on the other
03:23hand, they are coping with platforms who really are rather more interested in revenue
03:28generation than they are, perhaps, in calming the situation down.
03:33It's very difficult, isn't it, to know where to draw the line? I mean, one person's free
03:36speech becomes something that other people would find incredibly hateful and offensive. And
03:41it's very difficult to measure that and protect against that when it's online.
03:47Well, I think that is true. On the other hand, if one looks, for example, about a platform
03:53like X, it is very noticeable that when people complain about posts, which objectively seem
04:02to be pretty racist, pretty Islamophobic, and in some cases, pretty much inciting offences,
04:12their response to that, X's response to that, is to say, you know, these don't break our rules. So
04:18to some extent, it depends on the platforms getting tougher, policing the rules that they
04:24have. But as I say, their interest is mainly in revenue generation and not really in helping the
04:29police or the government. Tim Bell, great to talk to you on the programme today. Thank you very much
04:33for joining us. Tim Bell from the Queen Mary University, London, co-director of the Mile End
04:39Institute. Thanks.