British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to give police his full support in tackling “extremism” as anti-immigration protests and riots erupt across the UK following a mass stabbing at a children’s dance party in Southport earlier this week.
Facing a full-blown crisis less than a month after taking office, recently elected left-wing Prime Minister Starmer met his key cabinet ministers on Saturday as unrest erupted in dozens of towns and cities across Britain, many of them in quintessential Labour strongholds in the north of England, after a 17-year-old second-generation Rwandan immigrant killed three girls and stabbed eight people, including children, to death on Monday.
of Guardian, Quote The far-left organisation Hope Not Hate reported an estimated 35 protests were planned for Saturday, with violent clashes between protesters and police and attacks on businesses particularly in Belfast, Hull, Liverpool and Manchester. according to To TelegraphAt least 90 people were arrested across the country on Sunday.
A Downing Street spokesman told the paper: “The Prime Minister said he fully supports police taking action against street extremists who are attacking police officers, disrupting local businesses, intimidating communities and seeking to spread hate.”
“The Prime Minister concluded by saying that the right to freedom of expression is very different from the violent unrest we have seen. He said there is no excuse for any violence and reiterated that the Government supports the police in taking all necessary measures to keep our streets safe.”
The left-wing prime minister has adopted tough rhetoric against the outpouring of anger and violence, characterising the protests and riots as “far-right”, in stark contrast to his response during the deadly and devastating Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, when he infamously took a knee in solidarity with the Marxist movement. Explained Treat those involved as “legitimate people demanding justice.”
The government has also faced criticism for refusing to discuss footage posted on social media that appeared to show a violent reaction by large groups of Islamist and left-wing protesters.
After the mass stabbing, the Prime Minister declared that “the challenge before us is driven by far-right hatred”. https://t.co/5JqyzTrcDY pic.twitter.com/vJgdVrzEN6
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 1, 2024
Starmer’s handling of the first crisis of his expected five-year term has been heavily criticised by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, who has accused him of failing to tackle the root cause of public anger: mass immigration.
On Friday, Richard Tice, the MP for Skegness and a deputy to Mr Farage, Said“Millions of concerned Britons are outraged by a lawless Britain. Children are being slaughtered. Machete-wielding mobs are rampant. Soldiers are being stabbed. Police are being violently attacked at airports.”
“Instead of empathy, Keir Starmer has labelled people as ‘far right’. This is out of touch with reality and ignorant.”
But there are also calls for the government to go further, with Conservative leadership candidate and former home secretary Priti Patel calling on Mr Starmer to convene Parliament for an emergency meeting on the unrest.
One of the most extreme views on the crisis came from John Woodcock, Baron Walney, a former Labour MP and now a government adviser on political violence, who argued that if the riots continued the government should consider a coronavirus-style lockdown to quell them.
“The Government and new ministers will know that the British people will support whatever measures they feel are necessary to get this situation under control,” Lord Walney said. Said Times Radio.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government was prepared to support the measures that were necessary given the circumstances, and I expect they will take a similar approach to keeping rioters off the streets, given the scale of damage it has caused to communities.”
England riots: Sunderland arson, police attacked as anger grows over mass stabbing of childrenhttps://t.co/dKzDLFXQgA
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 3, 2024
