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LONDON (AP) — Just a month into his job, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sounded more like the prosecutor he once was than the leader of a powerful nation as he tried to quell the unrest that has gripped the country over the past week.
The unfolding crisis presents his first major test since he took power on July 5.
Starmer accused far-right agitators of spreading rumours and organising protests that have targeted mosques, targeted ethnic minority communities and featured Nazi salutes, racist comments and attacks, leaving more than 100 police officers injured.
Last week, misinformation began circulating on social media about a teenager accused of stabbing three girls to death and injuring 10 people during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29. The suspect was wrongly identified as a Muslim asylum seeker, fueling racial and ethnic tensions and leading to violent unrest.
“I promise you will regret taking part in this rioting directly, or inciting it online and then running away yourself,” Starmer said on Sunday following a weekend of violence that included a mob attacking and setting fire to a hotel where migrants were staying. “This was not a protest. This was organised violence.”
The riots quickly overshadowed Starmer’s plans after his Labour Party won a landslide victory over the Conservatives last month.
Patrick Diamond, professor of public policy at Queen Mary University of London, said the new government wants to focus on boosting the sagging economy and repairing public services such as Britain’s much-admired National Health Service, which was hobbled by deep cuts after the 2008 financial crisis.
“It doesn’t want to deal with this identity conflict,” Diamond said. “I think the protests and riots are certainly disturbing. Governments come into office with a plan, but they often go off the rails, and this is another example of that.”
Diamond, who served as policy adviser to the last two Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, likened the crisis to the one Brown faced when he took office in 2007, when a flood crisis overwhelmed his agenda.
Starmer, who was chief prosecutor for England and Wales during the last major riots in 2011, gave assurances that communities would be protected and perpetrators would be severely punished.
He also announced plans to create a “standing army” of specialized police officers to respond to riots and improve communication and cooperation between law enforcement agencies as protesters are believed to be traveling to different towns to cause trouble.
Diamond said one of the political issues facing Starmer was whether he was seen as able to take charge of events and mobilize a whole-of-government response, effectively deliver public services and deal with issues of community cohesion.
“This is an important early test for cabinet ministers,” Diamond said. “Are they managing the crisis, or is the crisis managing them?”
Starmer’s main political opponents have so far been united in condemning the violence and his response has not come in for much criticism.
Former Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverley said the government should have responded more quickly to the unrest and questioned the purpose and necessity of the so-called massive police presence Starmer had called for.
Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing populist Reform Britain party, which holds just five seats in parliament despite winning 14% of the vote, has been widely criticised for divisive comments that rioters were subject to “double policing” and were being treated more harshly than others, such as Black Lives Matter protesters.
The huge financial gap is likely to complicate efforts to respond to the crisis as Starmer’s government pledges to pay police officers for overtime, potentially hold courts at night and weekends to deal with the flood of cases arising from the disorder and make room for more than 500 extra inmates in an already overcrowded prison system.
On the day of the stabbing in the northeastern English seaside town of Southport, Finance Minister Rachel Reeves announced the discovery of a £22 billion ($28 billion) “black hole” left in the public finances by the previous government.
“The poor criminal justice system inherited by the New Labour government from the Conservatives makes this difficult situation particularly challenging, with insufficient prison space and very large backlogs in the courts limiting how cases can be dealt with,” said Kasia Rowland, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank. “All of this affects the ability of the police to respond to riots and disorder and to maintain law and order on the streets.”
More than 400 people have been arrested and about 100 charged in connection with the violence in more than two dozen towns. Few have been granted bail as some judges say they do not want to risk defendants being drawn back into the conflict if released.
Cases have been fast-tracked in an effort to get them to trial as quickly as possible, as Starmer did in 2011, and some suspects who pleaded guilty at their first court appearance have already been sentenced.
A man who assaulted a police officer outside a Southport mosque a day after the stabbing was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday. Two other members of the mob were sentenced to at least 20 months in prison.
Before the riots began on July 30, the government had announced plans to release prisoners by next month to free up space in overcrowded prisons. Rowland said they may now have to do so earlier than planned.
Rowland said that while the overwhelmed criminal justice system had the capacity to handle the surge in cases in the short term, urgent action was needed to prevent future collapse.
“If someone is out looting or committing very serious acts of criminal damage and arson and they are arrested and then released because they have nowhere to put them, it sends a very bad signal about the ability of the police and the wider system to maintain law and order,” she said.
The initial problem of stopping the violence will eventually give way to other political realities underlying the chaos — notably how to deal with the migrant crisis facing Europe as people risk their lives crossing dangerous sea passages to escape floods, famine, war and poverty.
Far-right and populist rhetoric focused on stopping immigration, with protesters chanting “Stop the boats”, a slogan used by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he vowed to stop the large numbers of small, erratic boats carrying migrants across the English Channel.
“This is violence against immigrants,” said Anand Menon, director of the Change Europe academic think tank. “It speaks to a section of the population that is deeply concerned about immigration. So I think the real challenge for the Labour party is … its ability and its plan to deal with the wider debate about immigration.”
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