Thursday, July 24th, 2025 on Channel 4 at 9:00pm
July 2024. The mass stabbing and murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport triggers rioting on a scale rarely seen in the UK. ONE DAY IN SOUTHPORT relives the appalling knife attack through the eyes of a surviving girl and her family and examines the roots of the mob violence which caught the government and law enforcement completely unprepared.
Police initially give no clues as to the attacker’s identity and online speculation fills the vacuum, falsely identifying the killer as a Muslim and an illegal migrant. A raging mob tries to burn down the Southport mosque and is barely held back by the police. A few days later the UK authorities disclose that the attacker is a Cardiff-born 17-year-old with Rwandan Christian parents.
As stricken Southport families mourn, mob violence erupts in 27 British towns and cities. Hundreds of angry men, women, and youths storm through city squares and residential streets, targeting mosques, asylum hotels and the police. The unrest is linked to extreme-right groups (chants of “Tommy Robinson”) and fuelled by online rumours and disinformation with a common thread of animosity towards illegal immigration (“Stop the Boats”) and Muslims. English society, media and politicians are left in shock and place the blame squarely on the “far right”. Keir Starmer’s government comes down hard on the rioters, who are processed by the courts at top speed and sentenced to a total of more than a thousand years in prison.
ONE DAY IN SOUTHPORT is firmly rooted in the experience of the family we filmed, whose daughters survived the Southport stabbings. They condemn the rioting and reject the politicisation of the murders. But the film also engages with a wider question: was the ten days of mob violence last summer merely the product of a cocktail of beer, high temperatures and bored thugs spoiling for a fight, or was it a symptom of something bigger – a simmering revolt by what Tommy Robinson calls “working class dissidents”? People like Dean Neil, a bearded political activist and bricklayer, who says: “If you’re White, straight and working-class, you’re getting hammered”.
Weyman Bennett, Secretary of campaigning organization Stand Up To Racism and a veteran of three decades of anti-fascist street protests, reflects that “People are rightfully angry but they’re blaming the wrong people. Immigration is used as an explanation for everything.” But Weyman also believes that we’re seeing a tidal shift in politics and the kinds of people who attend “far right” rallies: ”This time,” says Weyman ”they involved a periphery of angry people who were not fascists. There’s a populist feeling that ‘No one’s listening to us’ and actually the far-right could end up being the cheerleaders of that and that’s the danger.”
This film is directed by multiple award winning Dan Reed and Amos Pictures, the team behind Emmy and BAFTA-award winning Leaving Neverland, In The Shadow of 9/11, One Day In October and The Truth vs Alex Jones.