One in three Brits SUPPORT this week’s anti-immigration protests – and one person in 14 backs the rioting too, shock poll reveals: A quarter of people say Muslims are at least ‘somewhat responsible’ for the unrest

One in three Brits support the anti-immigrant protests that have swept across the UK over the last week, a new poll has revealed.

Angry far-right mobs have brought chaos to Britain’s streets — looting shops, setting fire to hotels and targeting police officers — in some of the worst disorder in over a decade.

Hundreds of people have been arrested so far, with some already appearing in court over the series of charges and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – who has described the riots as ‘far-right thuggery’ – called an emergency COBRA meeting today to try to end the chaos. He will meet with top ministers and police chiefs for the second time in two days.

And the Director of Public Prosecutions has confirmed that at least one of the 100 people who have so far been charged is being looked at under terrorism legislation. 

But a new YouGov poll has now revealed that one in 14 Britons are actually sympathetic towards the rioters and believe the unrest is ‘completely justified’.

A quarter of people hold Muslims responsible for the riots whilst over a third say they bear no responsibility at all. 

Around a third of those polled have placed their blame on Sir Keir’s Labour government. Thirty-eight per cent have also blamed former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Britain has been shaken by violence for more than a week, as police clashed with crowds in cities and towns from Northern Ireland to the south coast of England.

Tensions were fuelled by misinformation online that the suspect in the Southport kinfe attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event on July 29 was a Muslim asylum seeker who arrived by boat, which boiled over onto the streets.

Two-thirds of Brits believe the disorder is caused by rioters, thugs, racists and the far-right, the YouGov poll has revealed, but 9 per cent have instead labelled the protesters as patriots.

The poll revealed only 21 per cent of Reform voters supported the rioting, while three-quarters (76 per cent) opposed. 

And support among other parties is even lower, with only 9 per cent of Conservative voters, 3 per cent of Labour voters and 1 per cent of Lib Dem voters in favour of the disorder.

The broader peaceful protests have garnered the support of one in three (34 per cent) members of the public, but more than half (54 per cent) opposed.

Reform UK voters backed the wider peaceful protests (81 per cent), but they are the only party to show any great deal of support for them. 

Fewer than one in five Labour and Lib Dem (18 to 19 per cent) voters supported the protests, while Conservatives were split on the matter (43 per support and 48 per cent oppose).  

The YouGov poll suggests sympathy for those taking part in the protests is broader.

Six in ten Brits (58 per cent) said they had a fair amount of sympathy for those involved in the wider peaceful protests. This included majorities from all party voters.

When asked who is responsible for the rioting, nine in ten Brits believe the rioters themselves are somewhat responsible for causing the unrest. 

But social media has been seen as a dominating factor in stirring up tensions, with 86 per cent of the public viewing it as a key driving force. 

The media has also been blamed by seven in ten Brits as having driven the riots to some degree with one only one in five believing they are not responsible.  

Forty-six per cent of the public believe that the recent violence has really been to do with the Southport murders, with a similar number (47 per cent) viewing Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as holding some level of responsibility for the unrest. 

Far-right activist Tommy Robinson has also been blamed for stoking the riots, with 57 per cent of the public saying he is partially responsible. 

The latest violence on Monday night saw rioters hurl bricks and fireworks in Plymouth, southern England, injuring several police officers.

Officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, were attacked as rioters attempted to set fire to a shop owned by a foreign national. Police said a man in his 30s was seriously assaulted and that they are treating the incident as a racially motivated hate crime.

A group of men who gathered in Birmingham, central England, to counter a rumoured far-right demonstration forced a Sky News reporter off air shouting: ‘Free Palestine’. She was then followed by a man in a balaclava holding a knife.

Over the weekend, around 700 violent anti-immigration rioters clad in balaclavas and draped in St George’s flags clashed with officers trying to protect the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. 

At least 10 officers were injured in the chaos outside the hotel on the northern outskirts of the post-industrial town. One was left unconscious following a head injury, another suffered a suspected fractured elbow and other suspected broken bones.

Crowds in Middlesbrough set fire to a car and pushed burning wheelie bins at police, while thugs in Rotherham smashed windows and doors.

Meanwhile, a peaceful protest in Bolton descended into chaos when two groups of demonstrators clashed. One charged towards the town hall shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ while the other waved England flags.

Similar scenes could be seen in Weymouth, as around 400 protesters from opposing sides gathered on the seafront to chant at each other. One side could be heard chanting ‘Nazis go home’, while the other shouted ‘Tommy Robinson‘. 

Objects and pieces of wood were flung at officers who had lined up in front of the hotel in Rotherham with at least one cop in riot gear being carried away by their colleagues.

The Prime Minister has vowed rioters would ‘regret’ taking part in ‘far-right thuggery’. 

Speaking from Downing Street, Sir Keir suggested that rioters taking to the streets, and those ‘whipping up this action online and then running away themselves,’ would face consequences.

The Home Office announced mosques would be offered greater protection under a new ‘rapid response process’ designed to quickly tackle the threat of further attacks on places of worship.

‘People in this country have a right to be safe, and yet we’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, attacks on mosques,’ the Prime Minister said on Sunday.

‘Other minority communities singled out, Nazi salutes in the street, attacks on the police, wanton violence alongside racist rhetoric, so no, I won’t shy away from calling it what it is: far-right thuggery.’

Almost 400 people have been arrested and 100 charged over the week-long disturbances – England’s worst disorder in over a decade.

Sir Keir, a former chief state prosecutor, has promised swift justice and scores of alleged perpetrators were hauled before judges on Tuesday, with some entering guilty pleas.

A 19-year-old man became the first person to receive a prison sentence related to the unrest when he received a two-month term Tuesday.

Another man was convicted after he admitted assaulting a police officer outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham, northern England, on Sunday.

A 15-year-old boy pleaded guilty to committing violent disorder in Liverpool on Saturday after he was identified from a TikTok video, while a man in Leeds admitted posting threatening words on Facebook to stir up racial hatred.

The government, only one month old, has vowed to take a tough line on the unrest and the National Police Chiefs’ Council said Monday that 378 people had so far been arrested.

Justice minister Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4 that the government had freed up an extra 500 prison places and drafted in 6,000 specialist police officers to deal with the violence.

Police have blamed the disorder on people associated with the now-defunct English Defence League, a far-right Islamophobic organisation founded 15 years ago, whose supporters have been linked to football hooliganism.

The rallies have been advertised on far-right social media channels under the banner ‘Enough is enough’.

Interior minister Yvette Cooper said ‘there will be a reckoning’ for perpetrators, adding that social media put a ‘rocket booster’ under the violence.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk escalated a dispute with the UK government Tuesday by likening Britain to ‘the Soviet Union’. A spokesperson for Starmer had said there was ‘no justification’ for Musk’s earlier comment that a British ‘civil war is inevitable’.