‘We’re in it together’: how unrest in Leeds escalated – and was defused

It had begun as an ordinary Thursday in Harehills, an urban part of east Leeds made up predominantly of dense redbrick back-to-back homes. It was not unusual for police to be called to a disturbance in one of the UK’s most deprived wards but what unfolded over the following hours was a scene nobody had anticipated.

At 5pm, West Yorkshire police had arrived at a residential street to deal with a disturbance seemingly brought on by a row over children from a Roma family being taken into care by social services. A crowd started to gather, tensions were inflamed and the outnumbered officers were forced to retreat. They left behind a police car, which was smashed and flipped on to its side.

Within a couple of hours, riot police arrived in an attempt to control the escalating situation but witnesses said this appeared to make things worse. People – male and female, and of all races – were seen lobbing bricks and bottles at officers, hitting riot shields, as the police retreated into their vans.

“When the police came down here, they all got in the van because they were pounded from this end, that end and that end,” said Robert Shaw, a local resident, pointing down three roads that intersected outside the Compton Centre, a library and community hub in the middle of Harehills.

Five hours after the police were first called, in the darkening evening, a doubledecker bus was ablaze, the larger of two fires raging just off Harehills Lane, which is one of the main roads through the densely populated part of the city.

Flames reached the height of the roof of the school uniform shop next to where it had come to a halt hours before, when the driver and passengers were evacuated in the affray. Shortly after, two men set fire to the abandoned vehicle.

At 10pm, the faces of more than 100 spectators still left at the scene were cast in an orange glow as they stood around the fire, expressions ranging from frightened to worried to excited. Particles of ash swirled from the sky and the occasional cry of: “Get back!” could be heard when the fire flared, sending acrid smoke billowing that irritated eyes and lungs.

The heat from the burning bus was already keeping the crowd at a distance but when loud explosions punctuated the roar of the inferno, people screamed and scattered.

Somebody was throwing gas canisters on the fire, a dangerous situation with no police around to stop them.

Those at the scene were mostly Harehills residents from the surrounding streets, of varying ages and backgrounds. Some were older people, painfully remembering past disturbances; others were younger, attracted by the novelty of the commotion, many filming on their phones.

One man, a local youth worker, told the Guardian: “The community here know the impact of past mistakes,” referring to riots that broke out in Harehills in 2001, in which 26 cars were burnt out and 25 men were later imprisoned for their role.

A boy in a balaclava who threw debris on to the bus fire told the Guardian he was 16, therefore born about seven years after those events.

On social media, an altogether different furore was breaking out as far-right groups mobilised against the Muslim residents of the neighbourhood, in particular the Harehills Green party councillor Mothin Ali – who, if social media was to be believed, was complicit in the disorder.

The far-right antagonist Tommy Robinson claimed footage showed “the newly elected councillor for the area rioting tonight in Leeds. Multiple reports he’s even on the streets with them”.

In fact, Ali was seen by dozens of people earlier in the evening intervening, in an attempt to calm the disorder and stop the attacks on police.

At 11pm he was at the bus fire, a sheen of sweat across his forehead, calling for the community to come together. He was flanked by other residents – Muslim men and a mix of people from different backgrounds who anxiously confronted those who were trying to amplify the chaos.

Isa Ali, a young man who lives in Harehills and watched events unfolding from the start, said people online had been “vilifying this as a Muslim situation, and it’s not”.

An older youth worker, who had been part of this conciliatory group, said: “A number of BAME young people have made chains to stop people throwing things on the fires.”

Mothin Ali took a wooden crate from a man who had been attempting to throw it on the bus fire, telling him: “This is our neighbourhood.” The youth worker added: “Think before you act.”

The Harehills and Gipton ward is in the 3% most deprived nationally – the iconic image of the food bank sign painted in black on a redbrick building was taken here – and two-thirds of homes are owned by private landlords or housing associations. The brutal impact of austerity has hit especially hard here: lots of people have very little left to lose and many spoke of feeling that the community had been neglected and shown little respect for years.

Ali told the Guardian: “It’s communities like this that were let down, and these things are simmering under the surface and when we’re neglected, this is what ends up happening.”

Some residents expressed frustration at the perceived absence of Labour politicians, reflecting a wider sense of grievance with the party over issues such as Gaza. Though Salma Arif, a Labour councillor, had been at the scene earlier in the day, it was only Ali who remained until the fires were put out. “Where’s the Labour party?” one man asked a number of times.

The East Leeds MP, Richard Burgon, posted on X that he was heading home from parliament, while the West Yorkshire mayor, Tracy Brabin, said she was “appalled” by the scenes. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said West Yorkshire police would have the government’s “full support” in investigating the events.

In an update in the early hours of Friday morning, police said the disorder was “instigated by a criminal minority intent on disrupting community relations”. The force later said they had made several arrests.

Many local people on Thursday night expressed upset and frustration that the police had appeared to abandon them entirely for several hours. One man said: “The police don’t care about our area. They’ve just left, they’ll let us deal with it.”

However, West Yorkshire police’s decision to monitor the scene from streets away, and from a helicopter that spent hours over Harehills, appeared to prevent the situation being exacerbated.

At about midnight, local residents began gathering water from nearby houses in buckets and wheelie bins to reduce the bus blaze to smouldering embers. The crowd briefly moved about 50 metres down the road and cheers could be heard as a young man, Mohammed, did backflips to entertain those gathered and defuse any remaining heat. People played music on their phones.

As the flames subsided, Ali told the Guardian: “Harehills is like a rainbow of flavours. You’ve got every colour, every creed, we’re all in a melting pot together. And we get on with this.

“We’re not the richest people on the planet. We are poor people. But we’re all in it together. They’re bringing water in wheelie bins to put a fire out on a burning bus. That’s community spirit, that’s Harehills.”