Doodledog
Some of it will be opportunism and the heatwave, I agree, but I think mostly it's boiled-over frustration at 14 years of neglect. Working people having to use foodbanks. Having to pull their own teeth. Zero-hours contracts tying people to benefits and the control of their lives that that brings, etc. It reminds me of the 70 and 80s. The NF exploited hopelessness then, and the EDL are doing it now.
Good points. People are being manipulated and used for political ends. I hate the polarisation of this, hate the language used, including on GN; nobody 'voted for multiculturism', it was never on any manifesto, most of us accept the need to limit immigration, where we differ, perhaps, is on the language used. It is easy for certain parties to 'whisper' in the ear of a disaffected person, and tell them that everything that is wrong with their life; their shitty, poor quality rented housing, their zero hours contract, the potholes, the price of food, the long waiting list for their grandmother's hip replacement, etc., etc., is all the fault of the migrants. At the risk of mentioning it, this is exactly what Hitler and his coterie did to people in Germany, only it was the jews and the gypsies that he blamed.
There are wicked people at work here, they care not a jot for those they have manipulated, those who are raging and screaming and throwing bricks, rampaging and stealing from vape shops, convenience stores, sports shops.....those who load the guns don't fire the bullets here.