After the UK 2024 riots: radical care on an ‘island of strangers’

In August 2024, a wave of extremist right-wing violence swept across the UK, targeting Muslim, migrant, and minority ethnic communities. This frightening moment symbolised wider tensions in the contemporary British landscape: polarising debates on immigration, race and class, the long-term impacts of neoliberal austerity politics, and the continued dehumanisation of minority communities. As the Labour government introduce harsher migration controls and far-right protesters continue to occupy the streets, affected communities must continue to live with the lingering fear that such violence could erupt again at any moment. Through the lens of radical care, this research centres the experiences of those affected by the riots, exploring how those neglected by the state continue to resist, survive and thrive. Radical care understands relational practices of caring as essential for political reimagining and social transformation. Radical care exposes how marginalised communities mobilise to fill the gaps where the state has failed or actively reproduces histories of violence and trauma. Rooted in local communities and non-hierarchical collective action, radical care challenges neoliberal individualism and austerity politics. Starting with individual and collective experiences of the 2024 UK riots, this research goes beyond, to explore how practices and structures of radical care are necessary for surviving on this ‘island of strangers’ and can imagine new possibilities for wider transformation.