Protests reveal deep-rooted anger, but UK is not at boiling point

The evidence shows there is significant worry around both current levels of legal and illegal immigration. An Ipsos survey in February, external found 52% of people believed current immigration levels to be too high. Two years earlier, only 42% said that.

But the Ipsos survey showed people are generally more positive about the impact of immigration than not, although that gap has tightened since 2022 too.

As for longer term attitudes, the respected European Social Survey found that in 2022, external most people in the UK thought immigration had been good for the economy and the country’s cultural life. A clear majority said it had made Britain a better place to live.

Separate research by the World Values Survey, external found the UK the least likely country to agree that immigration causes crime or unemployment. Just 5% of Brits said they’d be unhappy to have an immigrant for a neighbour, one of the lowest proportions found anywhere.

Some areas that have seen protests, such as Middlesbrough, have crime rates significantly above the national average. And with policing facing well-documented challenges and backlogs in the courts, people don’t necessarily feel like the police or courts are dealing with things. This sense may be particularly acute in areas with the highest crime rates.

But the best evidence available from the Office for National Statistics suggests crime is a fraction of what it was a generation ago. For every five crimes in England and Wales in 1995, there is just one offence committed today., external

Anti-social behaviour is also at a record low. Your chances of being a victim of violence in Britain are almost certainly lower today than at any time in history. The figures show that over a time when migration has been rising, violent crime has been falling.

Presented with a daily array of terrible crime stories, we can be forgiven for imagining the country is becoming more lawless and more dangerous. But when you ask people about their experiences of crime, it is the opposite according to responses to the Crime Survey of England and Wales.

In Sunderland, it looked like quite a few saw the unrest as a bit of a Friday night spectacle, an opportunity to demonstrate their anger at a state they believe ignores them.

For others it was less spontaneous. Shortly before the trouble kicked off in the city centre, a train pulled into the station from Glasgow, full of men draped in the union jack. Outside the station, they were greeted by a crowd with southern accents.

I noticed a few faces with links to the now defunct English Defence League – this is not the first time I’ve seen racial tensions flare in 45 years of covering the UK.

What is different this time is that self-publishing on social media means those seeking to whip up the mob can do so without worrying unduly about the facts. There is evidence of foreign-owned websites actively spreading disinformation which is lapped up and spread by extremists attached to an amorphous array of self-styled “patriot” groups.

For those seeing violence erupt in their community this is clearly a very worrying time and we don’t yet know whether we have seen the worst of it.

But I have watched the clean-up operation in Hartlepool and read the research that suggests Britain today is safer and more tolerant than it has ever been. Because of that my sense is that right now it would be a mistake to assume that orchestrated far-right hooliganism is representative of the mood in Britain.