Justin Schlosberg, Tony Sewell and Zoe Strimpel chaired by Stephen Law

Academic Professor Justin Schlosberg, educational consultant and life peer Lord Tony Sewell and journalist Zoe Strimpel debate the causes of the 2014 anti-immigration riots and ask who can be held responsible.

Anti-immigration riots broke out across the UK in the summer of 2024. The riots were triggered by a stabbing in Southport. Three children were murdered. The false allegation took hold that the attacker was a Muslim asylum-seeker. Some have suggested the riots were in large part fed by Islamophobic and racist rhetoric of recent British media. Others have said that, while the violence was appalling, at least some of the grievances expressed by the rioters deserve to be taken seriously. How fair was the policing and media coverage of the riots, particularly in comparison to other contemporary protests? Who can really be held responsible for what occurred?

Schlosberg is professor of media and communications at the University of Westminster, co-founder of the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, and Edmund J Safra Network Fellow at Harvard. His books include Disinformation: A Critical Perspective.

Sewell is an educational consultant and founder and chair of the educational charity Generating Genius. In 2020, Sewell was appointed chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities tasked with looking into race disparity in the UK. He sits as a life peer in the House of Lords.

Strimpel writes regularly for both The Spectator and The Telegraph. She is an author, historian and journalist who specialises in gender, relationships and sexuality. She has published three books, her most recent being Seeking Love in Modern Britain: Gender, Dating and the Rise of ‘the Single’. Her next book is about why money, sex and power are, after all, and always have been, good for women.

Debate is chaired by Stephen Law, philosopher and academic, and author of bestselling introductions to philosophy for adults and children, including The Philosophy Gym. Law is also the editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Journal Think and is the Festival’s major projects director.