Imam at UK's oldest mosque calls for more unity against far-right

A Muslim cleric who invited far-right rioters into his mosque for a meal says the UK needs to keep up the momentum of reconciliation that emerged in the aftermath of last week’s unrest.

Far-right riots targeting hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques gripped the UK, leaving Muslims fearing for their safety on the street.

But imam Adam Kelwick, in the northern city of Liverpool, has taken a different approach. The week of riots, he said, had shown communities coming together to combat racism, and some people with far-right views being tempered by dialogue.

Online videos of the charismatic preacher embracing a far-right protester, and inviting another into Liverpool's Abdullah Quilliam mosque for food, became internet sensations. “We don’t want to go back to how we were before,” he told The National.

“We’ve entered into a new phase now. Alliances and friendships have been built from people who just over a week ago were considered to be our enemies. Now they're our friends and our protectors,” he said.

The riots were triggered by a fake news campaign, which falsely claimed that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for a deadly knife attack against girls at a dance class in Southport, 30km from Liverpool, on July 29.

Though courts eventually disclosed the suspect's real identity as British-born, 17 year-old Axel Radukabuna, protests and riots continued into the following week. The ensuing violence resulted in 975 arrests and 546 charges being brought, according to the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC).

Hundreds of people arrested during the riots began to appear in courts this week to face heavy charges.

Mr Kelwick welcomed the swift justice against the rioters, but hopes to continue the outreach work that began amid the violence.

He has just returned from a two-day retreat organised by Mark Scanlon, a former MMA boxer and fitness influencer from Liverpool – who had promoted one of the city’s far-right gatherings on his social media.

The rally on August 3 descended into chaos as police had cans and smoke bombs thrown at them, with parents and children seen running away from the violence.

Though many of Mr Scanlon’s own followers criticised his involvement in it, Mr Kelwick refrains from condemnation.

“The majority of the (protesters) were not far-right leaning, or driven by political ideologies. They were there because the emotions were so raw from the Southport stabbing, and they felt they wanted to do something,” he said.

The pair met for coffee in the days after the rally. Mr Scanlon invited the imam and his congregation to join him on an annual retreat that he organises in North Wales.

Most of Mr Kelwick's congregation were initially scarred to join the trip, but a highlight for them came on a walk in the countryside. “We were walking and talking in the countryside, and we prayed in a valley surrounded by the mountains. I never felt so safe before,” he said.

As we spoke, the imam was still receiving text messages from people he had met on the trip who had also taken part in the far-right rally. “I see it as an opportunity to admit I was wrong,” one person wrote to him.

One Yemeni woman from his congregation who went on the trip said she felt safe to return to work on Monday, after a week of staying at home.

But behind the positive messages, lies a darker reality.

Mr Kelwick’s Abdullah Quilliam mosque, which is the UK’s oldest, now has round-the-clock security and regular police patrols due to an emergency fund that the government released to protect Islamic spaces across the UK last week.

The imam admits he was worried when he saw the crowds gathered at Liverpool Pier Head on August 3. In previous years, members of the far-right coming into Liverpool to stage protests were chased away by locals when they got to the station, he said.

But not on that day. “To see that many people down on the Pier Head, I was very surprised, and worried,” he said.

Another danger came when a group of young Muslims made plans to take matters into their own hands, which could have caused more escalation and violence. Mr Kelwick said: “I found those guys and said: 'If anyone’s arrested for violence, I’ll come find you in prison and remind you of the shame you brought on to our community.'”

Since then he has sought to engage different communities to try to unite people. “Liverpool is a tribal city, half of the people have Irish origins, they have their own tribal leaders. It sounds strange, using it in a British context, but I've been sitting down with tribal leaders and making peace treaties with them,” he said.

There were steps the UK government could take moving forward, he said. While he praised recent security measures, he said more needed to be done around the messaging so Muslims were not seen to be getting preferential treatment – a trope peddled by the far right. “If it seems like the government is only giving this funding for mosques, that could just feed into this narrative,” he said.

More opportunities should also be created for dialogue between communities at the grassroots level. “I’m not talking about traditional interfaith dialogue. What we've been doing with members of the community in Liverpool for the last the last week or so, really needs to increase, because that's how you get rid of ignorance,” he said.

Another step was to put an end to “toxic” narratives about immigration – fuelling misinformation in public debate and on social media. “It has to be recognised that social media played a huge part in stoking this trouble up in the first place,” he said.

Damage caused by riots in the UK – in pictures

As a preacher, Mr Kelwick has sought to combat online misinformation by sharing his own videos of positive messages and correcting misconceptions about Islam.

But it was up to the government to regulate social media platforms. “This is a job for the government, not for me, and they've got their own battles to be had around issues like freedom of speech and all the rest of it.”

The fact that the riots happened weeks after the general election, in which political campaigns put immigration to the fore, is no surprise to Kelwick. “What we've seen on the streets is actually a result of the horrible campaign in the last general elections, where it was all about immigration and Muslims taking over,” he said.

Politicians such as Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist Reform UK party, were instigating the anger on the street with plausible deniability, he said: “They’re very good at supporting violent protests without supporting violent protests, good at being racist without being racist.”

Counter-extremism programmes such as Prevent were failing their own goals he said, and needed a “complete rebranding” to address the fears and suspicions they invoke among British Muslims.

A new version of the programme would need to be viewed as also protecting Muslims from far-right extremists. “There's a very delicate kind of balance which needs to be found there,” he said.

In its current state, the programme had caused a lot of distrust from the Muslim community, as it gave schoolteachers the power to refer children suspected to be at risk of radicalisation to local police.

“There’s so much damage being done,” said Mr Kelwick. “If you have to launch another programme which will not be at the expense of the development of the Muslim community, then you really need a complete rebranding.”

A Royal United Services Institute report last week found that the UK government had failed to treat far-right attacks as seriously as Islamic ones, resulting in a double standard in counter-extremism measures.

“Rusi’s research suggests that the nature of far-right violence, which is often seen as low-impact and disjointed, coupled with institutional bias and racism, means that far-right violence has historically not triggered the same responses from politicians, security services and the media as jihadist violent extremism,” the report said.

Mr Kelwick fears the government has been reluctant to reform the Prevent programme as “they see it as some kind of defeat, because a lot of very politically ideological Muslim organisations are also calling for the same thing.”