The Archbishop of Canterbury warned Christians not to join far right groups after protests by extremists espousing faith imagery led to violent riots across the U.K.
Writing in the left-leaning British newspaper the Guardian, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, head of the Anglican Communion, criticized the widely reported riots as “wrong”, “criminal” and needing to be controlled. He voiced his concerns about right wing groups referencing the Christian faith, even using icons during the lawlessness, as a means to justify their actions.
Welby said the riots targeted ethnic minorities and were “anti-muslim, anti-refugee and anti-asylum seeker.”
“It was detonated by lies and fuelled by deliberate misinformation, spread quickly online by bad actors with malignant motivations,” Welby wrote.
Atheism or agnosticism are “choices people may make, as are the different faiths, but no choice is an excuse for ignorance of others,” he added. “And to remove any doubt, the Christian iconography that has been exploited by the far right is an offense to our faith, and all that Jesus was and is.”
“Let me say clearly now to Christians that they should not be associated with any far-right group – because those groups are unchristian.
“Let me say clearly now to other faiths, especially Muslims, that we denounce people misusing such imagery as fundamentally anti christian.”
Welby’s comments were published after a teenager aged 17 was arrested and charged for the murder of three little girls, Bebe King (6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7) and Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9) last month, July.
The girls who attended a Taylor Swift themed dance class in a community center in Southport were brutally knifed to death. Some 10 other youngsters were seriously injured.
The tragic murders sparked online rumors about the identity of the main suspect with some people incorrectly identifying him or her as an asylum seeker arriving by boat across the English Channel last year, 2023.
These rumors flared into violent action with far right groups targeting mosques and other buildings in cities across the country. A number of police officers were injured, some seriously, in the riots, with the Christian Police Association pleading for prayers.
The National Police Chiefs Council confirmed 741 rioters had been arrested up to Aug. 9 for offenses ranging from violent disorder to theft and antisocial behavior. 302 of these arrested so far have been charged and face judgements in courts.
“We are working hard to bring this disorder to an end, but arrests are just getting started – and we have already made hundreds. We won’t stop until communities get the justice they deserve after suffering such violence and the spreading of online hate,” said Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, National Police Chiefs’ Council Chair, in a press release.
The girls were tragically murdered on July 29. Only two days before, a ‘Patriot March’ was led by acclaimed far right activist Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, 41, better known as Tommy Robinson, and his supporters in London. He recited the Lord’s Prayer during the event.
After the murders, sparking the riots, TV journalist Piers Morgan accused Robinson of making false claims about the main suspect in the murders. On X, he wrote to Robinson: “You helped incite and inspire the riots by spreading lies about the Southport child-killer being a Muslim illegal immigrant, which is why so many of the rioters chanted your name as they rioted against Muslims and asylum seekers – who had nothing to do with the killings. Fact.”
However, Robinson strongly denied these claims and in an expletive-laden video posting on X, he challenged Morgan to look at the evidence. “I’ve never said he was an illegal Muslim immigrant. Not once. Ten minutes of research would show that.”
Robinson also lambasted “mainstream media” in a series of video posts collated on X, in which he said the far right group English Defence League ceased existing 10 years ago and told rioters that the “level of violence. It won’t work.” He also said “stop the violence” and “peaceful resistance is growing.”
Robinson also said asylum hotels “need to be emptied” and accused immigrants of rape and pillaging, alleging that government policy had caused resentment.
U.K. Government figures showed 68,564 people granted refugee status in the year ending March 2024, which is “the highest number of people granted since records began in 1984.”
The Office for National Statistics, responding to a Freedom of Information request last October, said there is no data on the religion of asylum seekers to the country: “... we do not hold the requested information on refugees by religious affiliation.”
Emily Shepherd, chief executive officer of Welcome Churches, which works with refugees, said the past few weeks had been “difficult” for “many communities across the U.K.”
“We are celebrating communities coming together, and churches playing their part in bringing peace to their neighborhoods,” Shepherd told Christian Daily International. “We now need our churches to lead the way in bringing healing and building long term peace for our neighborhoods in order to create communities where everyone is welcome, and where no one needs to live in fear.”
