Claim: Muslims were responsible for riots in Harehills, Leeds. Additionally, Green Party Councilor Mothin Ali was also involved in escalating tensions during the incident.
Fact: The riots in Harehills, Leeds were sparked by an incident where Children’s Social Care attempted to remove a child from the home of a Roma family, which led the police to get involved later on.
On 19 July 2024, far-right activist Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, posted a video (archived) on X claiming “Muslims are rioting across Leeds, police are under attack and running away.”
In another post (archived), Nigel Farage, Leader of Reform and Member of Parliament (MP) for Clacton, attributed the riots to the “politics of the subcontinent”.
Robinson also shared an older video (archived here) of Green Party Councillor Mothin Ali, on X, claiming that the newly elected councillor was also rioting on the streets.
Riots in Harehills:
On Thursday evening, 18 July, riots erupted in Harehills, Leeds, following an incident where Children’s Social Care attempted to remove a child from their parents’ home. The police were called for assistance after the social workers reported that they were met with hostility when dealing with the matter.
According to an ITV report (archived here), upon the police’s arrival, a crowd gathered and the situation inflamed further. The police helped social workers withdraw to safety and retreated. Within hours, riot police arrived to control the situation, but the matter escalated. West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said it received reports of two fires, but it was deemed too risky to intervene.
Given that the children belonged to a Roma family, 14 organisations, including the Roma Support Group, the Romani and Traveller Social Work Association and the European Roma Rights Centre urged the UK government to “address the barriers and disadvantages Roma people experience during child protection cases.”
According to a Leeds Observatory report from 2020, the Harehills and Gipton ward is among the most deprived in the UK. The neglect faced by the community has contributed to the frustration and mistrust in the authorities.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse searched key frames from the videos shared in both claims and found several posts which suggested that the riots involved the police and the Roma community in Leeds. A video on Tiktok was captioned “Leeds harehills riot: 5 kids taken by the social services.” Another TikTok user posted a video with the caption “Romania vs English Police.”
A user on X posted videos (archived here) from the riots with the following caption:
“BREAKING: ROMANIAN COMMUNITY VS THE POLICE MAJOR RIOTS IN HAREHILLS, LEEDS. Social services removed 5 children from parents after a 7 month old baby was taken to hospital with a head injury. They attacked the Police and are setting things on fire.” We found another post (archived here) on X captioned “Riots broke out in Leeds, UK, after social services took children from a migrant family”.
To investigate the claim further, Soch Fact Check conducted a keyword search using “Harehills,” “riots,” and “Leeds.”, and found that major British news outlets had reported on the incident. According to a report by The Guardian (archived here), “At 5pm, West Yorkshire police had arrived at a residential street to deal with a disturbance seemingly brought on by a row over children from a Roma family being taken into care by social services”. The report described the people involved in the riots as “male and female, and of all races”, who were seen “lobbing bricks and bottles at officers, hitting riot shields, as the police retreated in their vans.”
A resident from the neighbourhood informed the BBC (archived here) that the incident involved children and social workers being removed from a house by police officers.
On Friday morning, West Yorkshire police released a statement (archived here) claiming that the disorder was “instigated by a criminal minority intent on disrupting community relations”, and added that several arrests were made later throughout the night.
According to the news reports cited above, the participants included individuals from various communities, including the Roma community. There is no credible evidence to suggest that Muslims were primarily involved in instigating or participating in the riots.
Furthermore, Soch Fact Check investigated the claim that Councillor Mothin Ali had further fuelled tensions by joining the rioters on the streets. Through a reverse-search of the video in the claim, in which he referred to his victory as a “win for Gaza”, we found that it was recorded when he delivered a speech upon being elected in May 2024, a statement for which the Councillor apologised later. The video in question is entirely unrelated to the riots from 18 July.
In fact, a video (archived here) on X, posted on 19 July, shows Green Party Councillor Mothin Ali and fellow councillor Salma Arif trying to mediate the situation involving social service workers, children, their parents, and the police. On the same day, Journalist Alex Tiffin also posted a video (archived here) on X, along with the following caption: “IMPORTANT There are some very prominent accounts claiming Leeds Green councillor Mothin Ali was participating or inciting people to riot in Leeds. This is FAKE NEWS. He spent hours trying to STOP people burning and damaging property.”
In a video shared by The Guardian on their official YouTube channel, Mothin Ali can be seen trying to quell the unrest by saying “This is our neighbourhood. There are children in there.”
The day after the riots, Mothin Ali appealed for calm in an interview with The Independent (archived here) and said, “The police had no shields and no helmets. Me and a couple of others tried to form a human shield. We stood in front of the bricks and bottles and tried to give the police a way of retreating.”
Virality:
Soch Fact Check found that the claim had been shared on X here, here, here, and here. The archived versions can be seen here, here, here, and here.
The claim about Mothin Ali’s participation in fuelling the riots was shared on X here and here. The archived versions can be seen here and here.
It was also shared on Facebook here and here.
Conclusion: Posts on social media which attributed the riots in Harehills, Leeds, to Muslims, are false. The riots were sparked by an incident where Children’s Social Care attempted to remove a child from the home of a Roma family, leading the police to get involved later on. During the unrest, Green Party Councillor Mothin Ali, was seen putting out fires to mitigate the situation.
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Background image in cover photo: The Independent
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