The archbishop of Canterbury has called far-right organizations "unchristian" and stated that their use of Christian imagery during the riots this summer is "outrageous."

Justin Welby denounced violent unrest in a Guardian article, calling it "racist," "anti-Muslim, anti-refugee, and anti-asylum seeker." His intervention comes after a week of violent disruption following last month's mass stabbing of youngsters at a dance class in Southport with a Taylor Swift theme.
The disturbances, which saw rioters target mosques, law enforcement personnel, and a hotel that accommodated refugees, were incited by far-right internet activists who made up the story that a Muslim immigrant was responsible for the attack in Southport.

Police across the country remain on high alert for further violence. Keir Starmer cancelled a planned holiday this weekend to lead the response to the unrest. Ministers believe the increased police presence and the speedy prosecution and sentencing of rioters have acted as a deterrent.

Thousands of anti-racism protesters rallied in towns and cities including Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and London over the weekend. A funeral for nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, one of three children who was killed in Southport, took place on Sunday.

The archbishop said the riots had been “detonated by lies and fuelled by deliberate misinformation, spread quickly online by bad actors with malignant motivations”. He said that that disinformation had “flourished in fertile ground cultivated by years of rhetoric from some of our press and politicians”.

Welby decried the use of Christian iconography by far-right rioters. “The Christian iconography that has been exploited by the far right is an offence to our faith, and all that Jesus was and is,” he said.

“Let me say clearly now to Christians that they should not be associated with any far-right group – because those groups are unchristian. Let me say clearly now to other faiths, especially Muslims, that we denounce people misusing such imagery as fundamentally anti-Christian.”

He praised community figures that have sought to heal tensions, including an imam in Liverpool who offered food to a small group of far-right rioters and engaged in conversation, and a group of bricklayers in Southport who helped to rebuild a mosque that had been vandalised. “We must develop and cherish these examples of civic virtue that have been counter-messages to those of the mob,” Welby said.

Last week, pictures of the imam Adam Kelwick and other worshippers at Abdullah Quilliam mosque in Liverpool engaging and sharing food with people targeting the mosque went viral.

Kelwick said afterwards: “The first ones who I approached, they acted as if I was invisible and they couldn’t see me. But I continued smiling and continued being friendly and then I went on to the next group until finally we broke through to somebody’s heart, and they accepted the food.

“Then everybody started taking the food, and we started discussing things with them. We had some really, really genuine interactions. Maybe four or five people, I asked them – what is it again exactly that you’re protesting against? Nobody had a clear answer for it. It just goes to show how frustrated, how misguided, a lot of people are.”