UK politicians and community leaders warned to tone down their rhetoric

With the Brexit debate that has gripped the United Kingdom for the past three years apparently heading toward a conclusion, and European Parliament elections also looming, one of the nation's most senior police officers is warning politicians and community leaders to tone down their rhetoric or risk inciting violence and civil unrest.

Mark Hamilton, who leads the fight against hate crime at the National Police Chiefs' Council, says organized groups have been exploiting the "heightened political divisions" caused by the Brexit debate and the EU elections in order to stir up racism and incite extremists to "act out or express their hostility".

Hamilton, who is also the assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, told the Observer newspaper politicians should avoid "inciting hatred". He said there has been a spike in hate crimes and a proliferation of extreme right-wing views recently, and that the mood on the streets had become "incredibly febrile", or feverish.

"Tensions are being stoked on a national level around our relationship with Europe, about cultural identity, and about immigration more broadly," he explained. "In any scenario like this, it's incumbent on people with a public voice to think carefully about how they express views so they don't incite hatred."

Since the Brexit referendum in the summer of 2016, the number of reported hate crimes has been growing. The 94,000 registered in England and Wales during the year ending March 2018 was 17 percent more than the previous year.

Hamilton said: "There is a responsibility on those who have a platform to think of the impact their words might have on others and to not inflame tensions or inspire actions which could turn criminal."

And he said journalists have a role to play.

"The media also have a responsibility… so we're not fuelling hatred or encouraging a backlash on social media or in real life," he said.

British members of Parliament have been debating the sort of relationship the UK should have with the EU ever since voters chose by a narrow margin in the 2016 referendum that the nation should leave the bloc.

Prime Minister Theresa May worked out a divorce deal with her EU colleagues back in November but British politicians subsequently refused to sign off on it on three separate occasions.

May plans to ask MPs to vote on the deal for a fourth time in early June after which, if it is defeated again, the UK will likely face a stark choice between leaving the EU without a deal or remaining a member.

Before that decision is made, Europe's 400 million voters will head to the polls across the bloc's 28 member nations to pick representatives to sit in the European Parliament for the next five-year term.

A rise in populism and nationalism in many European nations has led observers to predict that fringe and radical parties will do well in the elections, which are set for May 23 to May 26.