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Mothin Ali suggests far-right YouTubers linked to racist attacks on women

Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali has suggested a possible link between a racist sexual assault in Leeds and far-right agitators who film and harass women. Ali’s comment gets to the heart of a serious, pressing issue that mainstream media is all too happy to ignore.

Mothin Ali speaks out on targeted harrassment

Four men sexually assaulted a woman at knifepoint in Leeds on 8 December. She had previously reported five other instances of assault or harassment in the weeks before. Police, meanwhile, recognised the likely “racial motivation” and involvement of “the same group of males”.

This happened in a part of Leeds with some of the highest levels of deprivation in England. And Ali, who is a councillor in a similarly deprived area in the city, told the Canary:

Some of the culprits, we know who they are. They’ve been persistent offenders… They’ve gone from being violent auditors, filming and then harassing women from the sidelines, to actually going now to attacking women.

‘Auditing’ means taking photo or video content in a public space, often at protests. But, increasingly, so-called ‘viral content creators’ on the far right have been making money from online outrage.

Police need to “act swiftly” to stop the pattern of assault, Ali said, “before someone seriously gets hurt”.

Women in Leeds have expressed concern about their safety in public spaces. Leeds university group Students Against Sexual Harassment and Assault has insisted that:

Sexual violence isn’t an isolated incident; it’s part of a wider culture that enables harm.

However, they lament that:

the burden is still placed on us, especially women and marginalised students, to keep ourselves safe

In other parts of the country, there have also been racist attacks. The West Midlands, for example, has seen a number of cases in recent months of rape and assault against people from minoritised communities. British Asian women in particular have been subject to a series of racist sexualised attacks over the past few months.

Politicians adding fuel to the fire

Sexual abuse, whether of adults or children, has long been a problem surging from the persistence of male-led power structures. It’s not about specific ethnicities or religious groups. But, successive governments have chosen not to implement expert recommendations or invest appropriate resources. Instead, they’ve pandered to the far right, adding fuel to its propaganda.

Amid ongoing economic crisis in the UK, fascists have kept pushing the issue of immigration to the forefront. Establishment politicians and media outlets, meanwhile, have played along to avoid addressing the actual cause of ordinary people’s financial struggles – the increasing shift of power and money into the hands of the richest individuals in society.

The state’s support for Israel amid its genocide in Gaza and its crackdown on anti-genocide protests has normalised racist immorality, further empowering the far right. The terror of the 2024 riots was one example. Here, fascists (many of whom had a prior record of domestic abuse) exploited an awful tragedy to attack:

some of the most vulnerable minoritised women and girls

This had a massive impact on minoritised women across the UK.

As 2025 saw more racist attacks, meanwhile, experts on violence against women and girls (VAWG) joined together to slam the dangerous immigration narrative of both the far right and its establishment enablers. They slammed the:

myth that the greatest risk of gender-based violence comes from strangers

And they stressed that:

Women who can’t access public funds, such as welfare support or housing assistance – due to No Recourse to Public Funds conditions –  are three times more likely to experience VAWG.

Increasingly open fascist mobilisation has seriously damaged women’s:

individual sense of safety, freedom of movement and well-being in public spaces.

But in this context, establishment structures have failed to amplify women’s demands.

Amplify and centre women’s voices

Police have long had a problem with institutional racism, involving:

‘over-policing’ and ‘under-protection’ of Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.

And progress in dealing with this has been very slow. This means:

some groups have less confidence in the police complaints system than White people – and are less likely to complain, particularly those from Black communities.

Modern technological tools, meanwhile, have only threatened to “supercharge racism” with “discriminatory data”.

But Black and Brown women don’t only have to deal with this establishment bias once. Because institutions have too often “judged, blamed and disbelieved” girls and women who call out sexual abuse. And if they come from a working-class background, this intensifies.

At the same time, institutions reportedly sidelined women’s organisations after the racist terror of 2024. Male-led power structures too often talked between themselves only about how to protect women.

Racism, misogyny, and elitist power structures go hand in hand. And to end sexual abuse, we need to challenge them all. Minoritised communities, women, and working-class people need and deserve a system that amplifies their experiences at the hands of disgusting and violent racists, and puts them at the heart of building solutions.

Police absolutely need to “act swiftly” to deal with racist assaults on women, as Mothin Ali told us. Politicians in parliament do too. And that means actually listening to and centring the voices of women of colour – for once.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.