England, like the rest of Europe, has been struggling mightily under a wave of mass migration. Many of the migrants arrive in small boats under cover of darkness from France — in other words, illegally. This has become a major source of frustration among the British people. In fact, voters were so frustrated with conservative lawmakers failing to stem the flood of illegal immigration that they recently elected the Labour Party in protest.

In Southport, the demographic change has been rather drastic. Over the course of 20 years, the foreign-born population has grown from 4% to roughly 10%. This is a big shift considering Southport is a smaller city on the northwest coast. Southport’s experience with rising migration is small potatoes compared to major city centers like London. However, it’s the backdrop to the events that unfolded next.

On July 29, little girls gathered at a dance studio in Southport to participate in a Taylor Swift-themed workshop. A male teen, Axel Rudakubana, entered the studio with a knife and proceeded to stab 13 people, mostly children. Despite the heroic efforts of the dance teachers to shield the children, three were mortally wounded. Their names were Bebe King (6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7), and Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9). When a police officer showed up, he didn’t arrest the alleged murderer right away because he only had a baton. He had to wait until better-armed police showed up to arrest the killer.

Information has been slow to reach the public. During the assault, Rudakubana was only a handful of days away from 18 and thus an adult in the eyes of the law. What motivated his attack? It was this lack of information that led residents to start filling in the blanks.

Rudakubana is the son of Rwandan immigrants who came to the UK some 20 years ago. Could the attack be motivated by Islamic beliefs? After all, there has been a string of such attacks, as mass migration and lack of assimilation have caused a major clash of cultures.

The UK isn’t alone in such attacks. In June, Germany also had an incident in which a knife-wielding Islamist attacked a group protesting against mass immigration (which most of the press has characterized as “anti-Muslim”).

Because the UK attack bore the hallmarks of similar assaults, and because the police weren’t forthcoming with a motive, rumors began to swirl. The first round of riots by a fed-up Southport broke out on August 1. Southport may have been the catalyst, but several other cities in the UK followed suit. They were terrible and targeted Muslim-owned businesses, mosques, and immigration housing. Media sources dubbed these rioters “far-right” extremists.

What is of note, however, is that riots started up again a few days after, and this time it was not the “far-right” extremists that were gathering to cause mischief. Instead, it was hordes of mask-wearing Muslims that were on the attack. The “far-right” trolls on social media were listing off locations that they were going to meet to start rioting again. Muslim counterprotestors showed up, but no one was there for them to fight, so they attacked whoever was available: White people trying to enjoy a pint at a pub. TV news reporters just trying to do their job.

In response to the various riots, Prime Minister Keir Starme said:

People in this country have a right to be safe and yet we’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, attacks on mosques, other minority communities singled out, Nazi salutes in the street, attacks on the police, and wanton violence. So no, I won’t shy away from calling it what it is: far-right thuggery. To those who feel targeted because of the colour of your skin or your faith, I know how frightening this must be. I want you to know that this violent mob does not represent our country, and we will bring them to justice.

However, as arrests have mounted, there seems to be two-tiered justice being doled out. Hundreds have been arrested for the violent right-wing rioting. But the Islamic protestors? Not so much. Conservative commentator Ian Haworth makes this point:

The stage was set as a result of a mainstream refusal to speak the truth about the impacts of unfettered immigration (amounting to cultural suicide), which created a vacuum that was happily filled by extremists. After deplorable and yet inevitable violence broke out, only one side of a two-sided problem is being criticized. Fear and arrogance have created a racially segregated response to violence, which only fuels the accusations of “two-tier policing” at the root of initial protests.

The craziest aspect of this whole affair is that information is still not forthcoming about why these murders were committed by a teenaged boy. The atmosphere that years of poor governance has created, the fear of being called racist for calling out bad behavior or illegal action, and the slow-walking of information to the public all contributed to the chaos that is now unfolding.

Justice has been made impossible to determine. What is also being lost is the mourning of families in a community devastated by senseless murder.