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A friend of mine has been hospitalised with two bleeds on the brain and concussion after suffering what seems to have been a hate attack in Doncaster.

My friend is black; his parents immigrated here from Zimbabwe. They have been living in the UK legally for many years.

He is a charity worker and was in that town in that capacity.

He was walking down a street when he heard sounds behind him.

Then he felt something hit the back of his head and the next thing he remembers is waking up in hospital.

There was no robbery and no provocation – just targeted violence.

At first, it was devastating. Then I started putting things together: The timing. The narrative. The noise online.

Across social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), there is a growing theme that the UK is a “powder keg.”

If that’s true, it’s not because immigrants or minority communities are responsible; it’s because political actors and hate-driven influencers are working overtime to make it so.

Two major recent events demonstrate this in full.

In Southport, a tragic stabbing became a flashpoint.

False claims that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker spread online like wildfire, reaching millions.

Riots followed.

Mosques were attacked.

Migrants were assaulted in the street.

All of it had been fuelled by deliberate misinformation.

In Epping, the mere presence of asylum seekers at a local hotel was enough to spark ongoing protests.

These, too, were organised and amplified through online networks that blended anti-immigrant sentiment with conspiracy theories.

The protests escalated into abuse and violence.

Some asylum seekers were hospitalised.

Now: Doncaster. My friend’s case hasn’t made national headlines – but it fits the pattern.

A lone man from a migrant family, attacked in public. No clear motive. No theft. Just hate.

Maybe that is the point.

Maybe this was meant to be another spark.

Maybe it was an attempt to provoke a response, stoke division, or justify further aggression.

The truth is that the UK is not spontaneously combusting.

It is being lit, spark by spark, by people who see advantage in conflict.

As long as these attacks are treated as isolated incidents rather than chapters in an unfolding campaign, we will miss the forest for the trees.

It’s time to call this what it is: a pattern. A strategy.

And it is one that we must confront – before the next town burns.

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