Swift justice and people power may have saved our streets last night, but it has come at a cost

A damp squib. A militant movement in retreat. A three-pronged victory for people power on the streets. A visible police presence and the swift, summary delivery of justice in the courts. Or is it?

Britain woke up this morning to headlines revealing that after days of vicious clashes and running battles in our cities and town centres, the latest online threats of concerted action by the far-Right proved to be nothing more than that – idle threats.

It is surely no coincidence that the personal fallout has been made abundantly clear. Earlier this week, 58-year-old Derek Drummond was sentenced to three years for being part of “a large and unlawful mob” who had “effectively hijacked” Southport’s grief and left a mosque under siege and more than 50 officers injured.

Drummond himself told the courts, “I’m absolutely ashamed by the way I’ve acted. I’ve let Southport down, I’ve let the kids down, I’ve let myself down. I’m not here to deny anything.”

Yet, since he was found attacking a police officer in the aftermath of the barbaric attack on a children’s dance class on July 29, the twisted “justifications” parroted by the rioters have shifted.

Essentially anyone who is not white, British and/or on their side has become a target. And whatever those cynically seeking to make political capital out of chaos may claim, these lawless, often drunken yobs are not fuelled by any sort of existential despair but by repugnant bigotry.

Yes, the decent citizens of this country appeared to see them off on Wednesday night in a united – and wholly admirable – show of strength, but it would be a mistake to believe they have gone for good.

I was there to witness the response to warnings that a far-Right rally would be taking place just off the high street in Stoke Newington, north London.

I saw it first on my dog walkers’ WhatsApp. Then a local residents’ group sent round a Stand Up to Racism poster calling on us to counter-protest.

A neighbour came by and said a couple of dodgy-looking bald blokes in boots had been spotted “walking about”. Cue – no, not panic – steely resolve at Woods Towers.

It transpired that the Old Fire Station, which houses a migrant centre (alongside the organic veg box scheme and chi-gong classes) was one of some 100 targets, from Newcastle to Brighton, that had been posted online.

By mid-afternoon, the craft shop had pulled down its shutters. The book shop had boarded its windows and the Post Office had closed early – as had the Asian supermarket.

Like scores of other places across the country, we were shocked at our hitlist inclusion and braced for the sort of horrendous mob violence we’d seen elsewhere on television reports in recent days: arson, looting, random thuggery.

Spittle-flecked racism masquerading as patriotism; bloodshot Islamophobia worn as an appalling badge of honour; hatred of The Other. There is no place for any of that in our diverse corner in the borough of Hackney.

Back in the 2011 London riots, it was the Kurdish shopkeepers and Turkish restaurateurs who saved our streets, meeting the hooligans head on with baseball bats.

Staff from at least one local kebab restaurant ran at the attackers, doner knives in hands. Needless to say, the interlopers fled.

This Wednesday was to be a concerted community kickback, so locals were exhorted to gather at 5pm outside the fire station and raise our voices together. By 4pm, half a dozen burly balaclava-wearing Muslim men were standing, arms folded, in the road by the local mosque, presumably as a “welcoming” committee.

It was, despite the underlying intimation of menace, an oddly reassuring sight. Later they brought the rest of us a shopping trolley loaded with bottles of water.

For our part, we residents assembled, many carrying placards, others holding a banner that read “We Are All Migrants”. There were old-school activists and passing joggers, pensioners, hipsters with bike helmets and gaggles of Gen Z-ers.

One man, in his early-30s and dressed in a Barbie T-shirt, had fashioned his own baby pink balaclava. A lady vicar turned up and spoke to the half-dozen police officers.

I knew a lot of people from the choir I sing with and we gossiped – then fell silent as the local rabbi said a few moving words: “We might all look different, but we are a community and we care about each and every section of our community.”

Everyone, including those wearing “Free Palestine” badges, applauded. There were more speeches. More clapping. A little chanting.

By 6pm, as it was by then abundantly clear that it was a no-show situation (with apologies to the two follicly challenged blokes who had been impugned earlier), all 200 of us dispersed and went home.

Maybe, we wondered, the rioters had bypassed us and gone straight to Walthamstow, in the next borough? It was only later we discovered that a full 10,000 people had turned out to counter-protest there.

The aerial photographs were astonishing. Again the “far-Right and proud” movement failed to materialise – just as they had stayed away from Bristol, Liverpool and Sheffield. The night of action was marked only by inaction.

We had triumphed. Or had we? At a stroke – or several keystrokes – these agitators have shown they don’t need to even leave their laptops to foster fear and chaos, shut down businesses, send families indoors and immobilise swaths of the country.

Thanks to modern technology, they are communicating constantly on social-media platforms in closed groups, where no one can see what they are planning.

These meat-headed heavies are being egged on by the likes of Elon Musk, irresponsibly and maliciously talking of “civil war”, and Tommy Robinson, tweeting from his Mediterranean bolthole claiming the list of targets was a deliberate hoax manufactured by the Prime Minister and “the legacy press” to clamp down on free speech.

“They’ve created this whole thing to try and shut everyone’s legitimate concerns over immigration,” he stated on X, formerly known as Twitter. “So they continue flooding the nation and labelling anyone talking about it ‘far-Right’.”

Quite the leap of imagination; it doesn’t take MI5 to realise who benefits. When lists of migrant centres, immigration lawyers or mosques are published, they cause consternation and outrage. All before the EDL or the BDL (British Defence League), or however the protesters style themselves, have even hurled a brick or set alight a car.

The far-Right have not disappeared. This week, decent people won the battle. But I fear the war is far from over…