Tangle - The UK Riots

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

On July 29, three girls were killed in a stabbing attack at a dance class in Southport, England. Eight children and two adults were severely injured in the attack, including Leanne Lucas, 35..., who organized the event and was stabbed while shielding two girls from the attacker. A 17-year-old suspect, Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, from Banks, England, was arrested for the attack and charged with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, and possession of a curved kitchen knife.You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can watch the entire Tangle Live event at City Winery NYC on our YouTube Channel!Check out Episode 5 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. Please give us a 5-star rating and leave a comment!Today’s clickables: A quick note (0:50), Quick hits (2:45), Today’s story (3:55) Left’s take (8:19), Right’s take (11:05), UK New's Take (14:13), Isaac’s take (16:48), Under the Radar (24:15), Numbers (24:58), Have a nice day (26:17)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Help share Tangle.I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it. Email Tangle to a friend here, share Tangle on X/Twitter here, or share Tangle on Facebook here.Take the survey: How concerned are you that there could be anti-immigration riots in the U.S.? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.
Starting point is 00:01:00 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the riots in the United Kingdom. This is obviously a little bit of a different story than what we usually cover. I mean, we do some international stuff here and there,
Starting point is 00:01:41 but there's a lot of meat on the bone here. I think it's a really important story that touches immigration, misinformation, bigotry, xenophobia, international issues that are directly correlated and tied to issues that we're facing here domestically. And there's tons of debates happening about this. And yeah, I think it's a really, really important story. And so I'm excited to dive into it. Before we do, though, I do want to give you a quick promo for what's coming this Friday in our newsletter. As always, our newsletters on Fridays are for members only.
Starting point is 00:02:14 This is a plug to subscribe to Tangle if you don't yet. I'm going to be talking about Israel. And I'm going to be publishing a piece that I've been working on for the last couple of weeks. and I'm going to be publishing a piece that I've been working on for the last couple of weeks that's been incredibly difficult to write because I'm re-examining a lot of my own views and I'm trying to dig in on some of my own biases and think really hard about what we're witnessing
Starting point is 00:02:39 and say plainly what I'm watching the Israeli army and Israeli government do, which I think in a lot of ways is really horrifying. So it's gonna be a difficult piece for me to publish. I'm sure it's gonna piss off a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. But I also think, you know, I wanna look back on this time period in six months
Starting point is 00:03:00 or two years or 10 years or whatever and be proud of the coverage that we've done and be sure that it's holistic and covering this conflict from a lot of different angles, which I think we've tried to do and which I'm going to continue to try to do. And this is one of those angles. So that's coming out on Friday. Right now, I think we've got it teed up for subscribers only, though I'm sure there'll be a big internal debate about how to navigate it. But I wanted to throw it on your guys' radar and remind you that if you want to support our work,
Starting point is 00:03:29 the best way to do so is to go to readtangle.com and become a subscriber. All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to send it over to John for today's main story, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, U.S. inflation continued to cool in July, with the Consumer Price Index rising 2.9% from a year earlier, lower than economists expected. The latest numbers increase the likelihood the Federal Reserve will soon cut interest rates. Number two, election officials in Arizona and Missouri announced their states will vote on codifying abortion rights through state constitutional amendments this November.
Starting point is 00:04:13 Number three, a Kansas police chief was charged with felony obstruction of justice after the raid of a local newspaper's office. Number four, Iran will reportedly refrain from a promised attack on Israel if a ceasefire deal is reached in Gaza, with talks set to resume on Thursday. And number five, the United Automobile Workers Union filed charges against former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, saying they threatened union workers during a live-streamed conversation on Monday. And now on to our main story, which is the UK riots. Tonight, violence and vitriol on the streets of the United Kingdom, targeting migrants and mosques in an ugly eruption of anti-immigrant sentiment. On July 29th, three girls were killed in a stabbing
Starting point is 00:05:10 attack at a dance class in Southport, England. Eight children and two adults were severely injured in the attack, including Leanne Lucas, 35, who organized the event and was stabbed while shielding two girls from the attacker. A 17-year-old suspect, Axel Muganwa Rudakubana from Banks, England, was arrested for the attack and charged with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder, and possession of a curved kitchen knife. Following a vigil on July 30th, protests in Southport turned violent. Riots broke out as a wave of anti-immigration fervor was stoked by online misinformation claiming that the attacker was a Muslim immigrant who arrived in the UK by boat. Rudak Bana, who is now 18, is not a Muslim or an immigrant,
Starting point is 00:05:53 but a second-generation British citizen born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff, Wales. He has been a resident of Southport since 2013. However, the misinformation was picked up by Russian fake news accounts online and went viral, leading to riots in over 20 towns and cities across the country. On July 30th, the day after the attack, police clashed with as many as 1,000 rioters at a Southport mosque, resulting in injuries to some 50 officers. Protests chanting anti-immigration slogans in the Government District of London clashed with police, resulting in over 100 arrests
Starting point is 00:06:29 for violent disorder and other offenses. In the days that followed, additional violence broke out in Northwestern England and Northern Ireland. As of last week, more than 400 people have been arrested and British police deployed about 6,000 riot officers over the weekend. The government also announced plans
Starting point is 00:06:44 to operate UK courts 24 hours, 7 days a week, to expedite prosecutions of rioters. Public dissatisfaction with the government's handling of immigration has been growing since the pandemic, coinciding with a significant uptick in migration to the UK. Many of these immigrants are asylum seekers and arriving in the UK by boat crossing the English Channel. The number of immigrants arriving this way rose from 8,500 in 2020 to 45,000 in 2022. Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spearheaded a plan to send some of these asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed, but the plan failed after accruing huge costs and public pushback. Sunak's Conservative Party was soundly defeated in the UK's recent general election, while the Labour Party gained 211 seats in the House of Commons, and many Conservative voters opted to support the anti-immigration Reform UK Party.
Starting point is 00:07:36 The social media platform X has been accused of allowing for the spread of misinformation that contributed to violence, with many blaming ex-CEO Elon Musk personally. Musk's actions should be a wake-up call for Prime Minister Starmer's government to quietly legislate to take back control of what we collectively agree is permissible on social media, said Bruce Daisley, former Twitter vice president of Europe, Asia, and Africa. In 2023, the UK passed the Online Safety Act, which gives platform providers a responsibility to ensure the safety of their users. Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the attack, as well as the counter protests, which he called far-right thuggery. A spokesperson for the government added that
Starting point is 00:08:17 X has a responsibility to ensure the safety of their users and online spaces. They shouldn't be waiting for the Online Safety Act for that. They already have responsibilities in place under the law. Starmer and the British government are now facing backlash for the response to the riots and demonstrators, which critics are calling authoritarian. The think tank United Royal Services Institute says right-wing violence is often classified as mere thuggery, condemning the government for what it views as a two-tier response to crime that responds more harshly to similar acts of violence from Islamists. Today, we'll get into what the right, left, and UK writers are saying about the attack, the riots, and the government response, and then Isaac's take.
Starting point is 00:09:25 We'll be right back after this quick break. which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCcellvax.ca. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,
Starting point is 00:09:55 a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left identifies social media as the catalyst of the riots, suggesting these platforms have become dangerous sources of misinformation. Some say the UK needs to address its migration crisis regardless of the racism undergirding the riots. In CNN, Brian Fung wrote, the UK riots show how social media can fuel real-life harm. The widespread anti-immigrant riots in the United Kingdom of the past week and the false viral claims that fueled them may be the clearest, most direct example yet of the way unchecked misinformation on social media can produce violence and harm in the real world, Feng said. An economist might call these negative
Starting point is 00:10:54 externalities. Like pollution, they are byproducts of a profit-seeking business that, left unaddressed, everyone else must either learn to live with or mitigate, usually at great collective expense. The consequences tend to play out over long time frames and with large-scale systemic effects. This week, it is hard to avoid wondering whether politically motivated violence based on nothing more than bad faith, evidence-free speculation, has become a permanent fixture among social media's various externalities, and if we're being asked to make peace with it as a condition of living in a digitally connected world, Fung wrote. It may be tempting to dismiss social media's various externalities, and if we're being asked to make peace with it as a condition of living in a digitally connected world, Fung wrote. It may be tempting to dismiss social media's role in the UK riots as merely a reflection of latent political trends or the result of activism
Starting point is 00:11:35 that would have happened on other platforms anyway, but that distracts from the calculation that some platforms appear to have made. At least some of the time, some amount of misinformation-fueled violence is a reasonable cost for society to pay. In The Atlantic, Robert F. Wirth said, Keir Starmer needs to address immigration, not because of Britain's riots, but in spite of them. The lawlessness on display in recent days doesn't change the fact that the British government
Starting point is 00:12:00 has been mishandling immigration for years. It allowed in record numbers of migrants entering legally and illegally year after year in the teeth of popular opposition and then introduced flawed schemes such as the aborted effort to fly them to Rwanda for processing. The number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, some of them drowning in their attempts,
Starting point is 00:12:20 continues to rise and is a source of shame and anguish across the political spectrum. The riots followed a long string of other clashes, including anti-immigrant protests in Ireland and violent confrontations involving Roma migrants in Leeds last month. If all of these were happening in another part of the world, it might be described, as some pundits have observed, as ethnic conflict, Worth wrote. A more focused policy would reform the UK's chaotic asylum system and maybe even its approach to assimilating new arrivals. Greater transparency
Starting point is 00:12:51 about just what the government's policies really are could help mitigate the power of conspiracy theories about plots to crowd out the native-born. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right worries that the UK riots foreshadow similar unrest in the US over migration. Some say that the response to the riots should not be social media censorship, but more speech. In the Washington Examiner, Ian Haworth wrote, Anti-immigration riots are coming here if we don't speak up. Race riots have taken hold of cities throughout the nation,
Starting point is 00:13:35 with Brits witnessing the worst public disorder in recent memory. And while it seems so far away, we must understand that this is coming to a city near you unless we are willing to stand up and speak the truth about immigration, despite the ever-looming threat of being called racist, Haworth said. Here's the uncomfortable truth you won't hear. This explosion of violence isn't one-sided, and it didn't come out of nowhere. While far-right-wing attacks motivated by bigotry are disgusting and deserve condemnation, we must also zoom out to understand the full picture. This attack was incorrectly used to justify deplorable violence,
Starting point is 00:14:05 but it's also important to understand that it is one of many attacks across many days, months, and years, forming a pattern of violence linked with open immigration policies that are being ignored or downplayed, Haworth wrote. In today's UK,
Starting point is 00:14:19 you'll spend more time in prison for racist tweets than for raping a child. And politicians are surprised people are upset? This was allowed to happen because they let British culture be slowly hijacked from within under the banner of tolerance and abandon the act of protest to people who want to choose violence. And make no mistake, this inevitable tipping point is coming to the United States soon if we
Starting point is 00:14:39 follow the UK's lead and fail to stand up, say what is true, and protect Western values. In National Review, Andrew Studeford wrote about riots, social media, and the opinion corridor. It didn't take long after the recent wave of riots in England began for there to be demands for tighter regulation, or to call it what it is, censorship of social media. In this case, the would-be censors were fortified by the fact a major trigger for riots were online reports that the individual responsible for the appalling knife attack that left three little girls dead and other victims injured was Muslim, an asylum seeker, or both. This was simply untrue, Studefort said. Even if most of those rioting were thugs looking
Starting point is 00:15:20 for an excuse to make trouble, the fact remains that many people sitting at home were prepared to believe the claims that were made. Something else has also emerged, an opinion corridor, not dissimilar to that of the Overton window, which basically defines the outer limits of what may or may not be said in polite society, including on the media. To deny that the setting of such boundaries in the UK is influenced by ideology,
Starting point is 00:15:43 as well as a basic need to keep the peace is either naive or dishonest, Studeford wrote. If further steps beyond the existing law are taken to limit what might be posted on social media, they will only increase the distrust of information generated by government sources or the mainstream media. And the answer is not to turn to the often spurious objectivity of fact-checkers, a rightly discredited cast, but to argue back. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to what some UK writers are saying. UK writers on the left argue the riots were a product of years of racist rhetoric from the country's right flank. Conservative writers from the UK condemn the riots, but say concerns over migration are still legitimate. In The
Starting point is 00:16:22 Guardian, David Olusoga said, the UK riots were violent racism fomented by populism. Riots are not protests, and there is a difference between motivations and excuses. Despite much that has been said, the riots of 2024 were not born of legitimate grievances about poverty,
Starting point is 00:16:37 underinvestment, and the breakdown of basic services, all supposedly deepened by mass immigration. The people attacked on the streets, those who had to defend their places of worship or their homes, are the neighbors of the rioters. They live in the same towns and suffer the consequences of the same exact poverty and underinvestment. A defining characteristic of the populist right, both politicians and their enablers at the tabloids and online, is an absolute ironclad, unwavering refusal to take responsibility for the consequences
Starting point is 00:17:06 of their own actions. They scuttled away from the wreckage of Brexit, pointing accusatory fingers at others as their most cherished political project decimated Britain's trade, Olusoga said. A nation that was led for three years by a prime minister whose ethnic and racial slurs against Muslim women and African children, in which newspaper columnists were allowed to describe asylum seekers as vermin, and in which those same papers constantly and deliberately conflated the separate issues of immigration and asylum, such a nation, sooner or later, was always going to face consequences. In the Daily Express, Sir John Hayes wrote,
Starting point is 00:17:38 We must uphold lawful order. Only then can we discuss ending mass immigration. From Belfast to Bristol, our streets have been scarred by violent protests following the shocking knife attack on young girls in Southport at the end of July. Thuggery and crime should be condemned without question, as the full force of the law is brought to bear on those who flout it, Hayes said. The current violence powerfully demonstrates how dangerous it is to pander to elements that operate beyond lawfulness.
Starting point is 00:18:09 The enforced order on which public safety depends relies on the authority of the police who must now reclaim our streets. Nevertheless, searching questions about the impact of mass immigration warrant a fair hearing, so the government must reach out beyond its narrow base and demonstrate that it can govern for all the people of the United Kingdom, not just the metropolitan liberal elite and vested public sector interests, Hayes wrote. Lawful order must be upheld for the common good. Once it has been, politicians of good faith should encourage and welcome a considered national conversation
Starting point is 00:18:35 about ending the days of mass immigration and in doing so, promote new steps to create an elevating and enduring shared sense of Britishness. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, and of course, some takes from abroad, which brings us to my take. So this story has a lot of important elements, but there are three core themes that emerged in the commentary we cited above.
Starting point is 00:19:12 Disagreement about the root causes of the riots, unease over the government's response, and fears that the violence in the UK could foreshadow similar unrest here in the US. I'll address each point in turn, but overall, the scale of the riots, videos of the chaos on social media, and comments from British leaders about what should happen next give me the uneasy feeling that this problem is far from resolved. The killing of the three girls in Southport was obviously a horrific event, and I'm not surprised at the community's outrage when it couldn't get immediate answers about the perpetrator due to laws that protect the identity of minors accused of crimes. Those are generally good laws, but in this case, they created an information vacuum that bad actors were willing and able
Starting point is 00:19:55 to exploit on social media. However, identifying misinformation as the sole cause of the riots is lazy. It's the easy thing to do. As British writer Elliot Wilson wrote, quote, far-right groups organizing the riots draw a straightforward line from immigration, especially Muslim immigration, to violent crime. The killer's supposed identity was never more than a useful prompt, so his actual identity has been no break on their activities. Commentators like David Olusoga, under what UK writers are saying, also make a compelling case that those who seek to ascribe motives other than racism or xenophobia to the riots are missing the long history of racial resentment that is tied to these kinds of
Starting point is 00:20:36 incidents in the UK. The rioters' choice of targets underscores this reality. Local mosques in Southport and a hotel in Rotherham. It's okay to say plainly that this is founded in bigotry. Furthermore, Brits seem tolerant of violence towards refugees and immigrants. A poll released this week found that 32% of the British agree that hostility against refugees is sometimes justified even if it ends in violence, while 36% agree that xenophobic acts of violence are defensible if they result in fewer refugees being settled in one's town. It's just one poll,
Starting point is 00:21:10 but those are not small minorities or encouraging results. While it's good to call out genuine racism and bigotry, it would also be narrow-minded to end the story there. Many rioters targeted Muslims or presumed migrants, but others torched libraries, looted grocery stores, and attacked nurses on their way to hospital shifts. Writers from across the political spectrum have highlighted a litany of issues that foreshadowed this month's riots. Severe wealth inequality, loss of trust in the police, deteriorating public services,
Starting point is 00:21:39 high youth unemployment, and social isolation. Migration has become the focal point for all these problems, especially after a historic surge of new arrivals during the pandemic further strained public resources. That's all to say we can simultaneously condemn the rioters' actions and acknowledge the issues that are fueling broader agitation in British society.
Starting point is 00:21:59 UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been in office barely a month, but I suspect addressing these tensions will be the defining challenge of his term. And let's just say I'm skeptical of his and other British law enforcement and politicians' approach so far. I don't think anyone should take seriously the London police chief's threat to extradite and jail US citizens for violating UK rules about political speech online, but other measures being floated give me pause. Last year, the UK passed the Online Safety Act, which, when it goes into effect in 2025,
Starting point is 00:22:31 will fine social media companies if they fail to moderate calls to violence or hate speech on their platforms. Now, Prime Minister Starmer and other lawmakers are suggesting it could be amended to add penalties for spreading misinformation on social media, reportedly including legal but harmful content. Yes, social media platforms were used to organize the riots, but plenty of arrests tied to individual social media posts are not so clear-cut. Some UK citizens have already received multi-year prison sentences for posts about the riots. While their comments were abhorrent and arguably criminal, I was shocked to learn they received harsher sentences than some rioters who physically assaulted the police.
Starting point is 00:23:10 Other examples are more troubling. A 55-year-old woman was arrested for posting inaccurate information about the identity of the suspect in the Southport murders, while a 25-year-old man received a three-month sentence for making a false claim about being chased by extreme right-wing rioters on TikTok. Those arrests followed tweets from the official UK government account warning citizens to, quote, think before they post, and comments from a
Starting point is 00:23:34 government prosecutor that suggests a much more aggressive approach to monitoring online activity. This is to say nothing of another simple reality. When you limit speech on one platform, that will drive people to other less public but more extreme and more echo chambery spaces, which is part of this story too. Limiting speech can also make people feel like they have no choice but to act on violent or extreme impulses precisely because they are being silenced. Allowing speech to proliferate like we do in the U.S. is one way to quell people's desires to turn to political violence. My takeaway from these cases is similar to conservative writer Brad Columbo, who said, quote,
Starting point is 00:24:12 arresting people after sharing, quote-unquote, false information requires making the government the ultimate arbiter of truth, end quote. And even if the government could somehow be that arbiter of truth, sending disgruntled British citizens to prison for their social media posts doesn't address the systemic issues underlying the riots. So, what can we learn here in the U.S. from what's unfolded in the U.K.? Of course, immigration is front and center in this year's presidential election, and U.S. voters are expressing similar concerns about the level of uncontrolled migration into the country. We've also had our share of stories
Starting point is 00:24:44 involving crime and migrants that inflame these tensions, with the help of social media, of course. And as in the UK, our immigration debate touches on issues ranging from the economy to public services to social cohesion. Despite those parallels, though, I don't think the US is on the verge of widespread tumult
Starting point is 00:25:01 like we've just seen across the pond. Still, it's not impossible to imagine either. But like I said at the start, this all leaves me feeling concerned for the future. My hope is that rather than trying to crack down on speech they deem inaccurate or misleading, UK's leaders address public unrest by focusing on their citizens' reasonable concerns
Starting point is 00:25:20 over migration and investing in solutions to tackle longstanding problems. And in the U.S., I hope we heed the riots as a reminder that we have our own work to do too. All right, that is it for my take. We are skipping today's reader question because the podcast was a little bit longer than usual. But as always, if you want to submit a reader question, you can write to us, staff, S-T-A-F-F at readtangle.com. That's a good way to reach our whole team. If you ever have feedback or thoughts and make sure that somebody gets back to you or sees your email.
Starting point is 00:25:51 I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. We'll be right back after this quick break. We'll be right back after this quick break. crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed.
Starting point is 00:27:00 Learn more at FluCellvax.ca. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your Under the Radar story for today, folks. Benzene, a potent cancer-causing carcinogen, is being used in store-brand cold relief medicine, according to a new Bloomberg report. Generic versions of Mucinex commonly sold at CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart are sometimes made with the chemical, which can cause blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma.
Starting point is 00:27:34 Consumers, however, have a hard time knowing benzene is in the medicine by simply looking at the box, as it is added through an active ingredient called carbamer. U.S. regulators have allowed the use of benzene for decades, even though international authorities say it should be banned. Bloomberg has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of migrants, immigration minus emigration, to the U.K. in 2020 was 90,000, according to Statista. The net number of migrants to the UK in 2022 was 745,000, the highest single-year total of the past 59 years. The net number of migrants to the UK in 2023 was 685,000, the second highest single-year total of the past
Starting point is 00:28:21 59 years. The percentage of Britons who said the recent riots were born out of a desire to engage in violence and criminal damage is 46%, according to a More In Common poll. The percentage of Britons who said the recent riots were born out of legitimate concerns from those worried about immigration to the UK is 23%. The percentage of Britons who say they have sympathy with those taking part in the recent protests peacefully is 58%, according to a YouGov poll. The percentage of Britons who say they have sympathy for those causing unrest at the protests is 8%. The percentage of Britons who say social media platforms are a key driving force of the unrest in the UK is 86%.
Starting point is 00:29:00 And the percentage of Britons who say immigration policy in recent years bears some responsibility for the unrest in the UK is 67%. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. For 400 years, beavers were extinct from Britain. Now, there are around 1,500 beavers in Scotland and 6,000 to 800 in England after both licensed and unlicensed releases into the environment. In creating dams, beavers help provide ponds for frogs, dragonflies, and other kinds of wildlife. Further, their dams can improve water quality and reduce flooding. Beavers are an important animal we once lived alongside, said Dr. Sean McCormick of the Ealing Beaver Project. Welcoming them back, even to our towns and cities, is the right thing to do.
Starting point is 00:29:45 The Guardian has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to retangle.com and sign up for a membership. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Maul signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by Duke Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady.
Starting point is 00:30:13 The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website at readtangle.com. That's readtangle.com.

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