How to Solve the Dilemma of Nationwide Riots in Britain?

In recent days, Britain has been plunged into large-scale riots, with arson, looting, smashing and mutual beatings sweeping the country, scene after scene is shocking. The trigger of the riot was a knife attack in Southport, England on July 29. A 17-year-old man broke into a children's dance class with a knife and committed a murder, causing three children to die and eight children to be injured. After the tragedy, the immigrant background of the murderer quickly ignited hatred on the Internet and triggered large-scale public protest demonstrations. The government's mishandling of the situation allowed the chaos to continue to ferment, and then evolved into violent conflicts and social unrest in many parts of the country, forming a situation of three-way fighting between local right-wing forces, immigrant forces and government police.Faced with the serious situation, the British government criticized the extreme right-wing forces for inciting the expansion of the situation behind the scenes, and at the same time accused the platform represented by "X" of spreading extreme hatred ideas, asking Musk to continue to ban the accounts of extreme right-wing British politicians and not provide them with a platform for发声, and at the same time arrested people who shared riot videos or posted different views on the Internet for cyber crimes.

From a broader perspective, the root cause of the disorder across the UK lies in the long-standing "immigration dilemma". First, the UK's immigration policy has laid a serious political hidden danger. The British government has never formed an effective immigration governance policy. The asylum provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights require the British government to spend huge amounts of money each year to resettle illegal immigrants, leading to long-standing grievances among the people. The UK, which is unable to build a consensus on immigration governance, has chosen to look for places that can accept resettlement of immigrants. In 2022, the Johnson government signed an agreement with Rwanda to fund the construction of immigration resettlement facilities. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has suspended the plan and called for a review, preventing the deportation plane from taking off until Johnson stepped down. Under the repeated interventions of the opposition parties and the ECHR, the cost of the "Rwanda Plan" has tripled in two years, with a total budget of more than 10 billion pounds, well beyond the capacity of the British government.The previous Sunak government had intended to push through the plan despite the pressure, but it made no progress before it was ousted. Now the newly installed Labor government has decisively scrapped the project, which has cost 700 million pounds without producing any results, delivering the final blow to the failing UK immigration policy. The money invested has gone down the drain, and right-wing voters are criticizing the government for its incompetence in dealing with illegal immigration, and some of them may resort to violence to express their grievances.Second, Brexit has plunged the UK into multiple economic dilemmas. For decades, immigration has been a hot topic in the UK. In the eyes of some working and middle class people, immigrants and refugees have brought about shocks to employment, welfare, community structure and even social security in the UK. Such feelings were amplified and played up by some right-wing politicians and became an important driving force behind the 2016 Brexit referendum. However, after Brexit, it has become even more difficult for the UK and the EU to coordinate on immigration, and the two sides are often caught in mutual accusations and buck-passing. As a result, the UK has lost the economic benefits of EU capital and trade, and failed to effectively curb the influx of外来移民. The problem of illegal immigration has become even more serious after Brexit.Since the Ukraine crisis, the UK has actively acted as a vanguard in supporting Ukraine and opposing Russia, investing a large amount of political and military resources into the battlefield while neglecting support for the national economy, thereby exacerbating the domestic economic crisis. British economic growth has almost stagnated, with 12 local governments already declaring bankruptcy, and the British Prime Minister recently announced directly that the state is bankrupt and has become "fragmented". British people's livelihood and well-being have been deeply impacted by the energy crisis and the wave of rising food prices. The overall income of British households has generally decreased, making it difficult to pay for the increasingly high cost of living. Therefore, those joining the protests this time include not only anti-immigration advocates but also a larger number of people dissatisfied with the current situation.Third, the unbalanced population structure has contributed to deep social divisions. After Brexit, a large number of illegal immigrants have poured in, and the population of immigrants and native residents has changed, but the degree of immigrant integration is very low, leading to serious social divisions. The surge in terrorist incidents and social security cases caused by illegal immigrants has seriously impacted the normal lives of British people. British political parties are also increasingly inclined to lenient immigration policies, which has led to a surge in the number of immigrants arriving in the UK through illegal channels, further exacerbating the imbalance of the population structure.In addition, since the Ukraine crisis, immigrants from Ukraine have flooded into the UK, which has also increased the complexity of social issues. The recognition and acceptance of immigrants by the local people is not high to begin with, not to mention in a period of economic downturn and scarcity of jobs. Immigrant groups are also dissatisfied with the current situation and are extremely sensitive to the exclusion of local extremist forces. Therefore, they adopt a group strategy to actively fight for the rights of survival and development.

In Europe, the "immigration dilemma" is not unique to the UK. In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine crisis, the energy crisis and other issues have made it difficult for the EU economy to move forward. Faced with domestic economic downturn, high inflation, high unemployment and other issues, EU member states are unable to provide the necessary financial support for the resettlement of illegal immigrants and refugees. The refugee problem triggered by the escalation of regional conflicts such as the new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict has put even more pressure on the EU and its member states,逼近极限. At the end of last year, many European countries, including Germany and Italy, have gradually tightened their immigration policies and strengthened controls to cope with the possible new wave of refugees.At the same time, the conflict between multiculturalism and traditional values continues to aggravate Europe's "schizophrenia". The Western pluralistic public opinion environment has shaped the identity of the new immigrants as the master, but the traditional Western white society is not ready to accept it. The new generation of immigrants is often discriminated against and excluded, which has caused further opposition at the social level.It remains to be seen when the riots in the UK will subside, but what is more troubling for the British government are the refugee crisis, structural economic problems, cost-of-living crisis and employment issues beyond the riots. British society, which is already in tatters, cannot bear the weight of the riots. The Labour government in the 1970s was brought down by the general strike known as the "Winter of Discontent". The "Summer of Discontent" is just the beginning of the test for Starmer's government.