UK: Crisis meeting at Downing Street after weekend of far-right riots

Confronté In the wake of the worst riots in the UK in 13 years, Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a crisis meeting in Downing Street on Monday after a weekend of violence by far-right rioters targeting mosques and migrants.

A week after the knife attack that killed three young girls in the northwest of England, the clashes that followed, against a backdrop of speculation about the profile of the suspect, have spread across much of the United Kingdom.

Hundreds of arrests have been made following the scenes of the last few days: hotels housing asylum seekers ransacked, mosques stormed, shops looted…

After displaying great firmness in recent days, the Prime Minister has called a crisis meeting, known as “Cobra”, with ministers and police representatives at his official residence in London.

The participants left late in the morning without speaking to the press.

On Sunday afternoon, Keir Starmer took to television to assure the rioters that they would “regret” having participated in the “disorder” of the last few days, either directly or indirectly, “by provoking these online actions.”

The Labour leader, a former lawyer and director of public prosecutions who entered Downing Street just a month ago, promised that his government would do “whatever it takes to bring these thugs to justice as quickly as possible.”

The riots broke out in Southport the day after the stabbing in the seaside town, amid unsubstantiated and partly since-debunked rumours about the religion and ethnicity of the 17-year-old suspect, Axel Rudakubana, who has been charged with murder and attempted murder. Officially, it is only known that he was born in Wales, with media reports claiming that his parents were from Rwanda.

After several days of clashes, particularly in Liverpool (north-west), Belfast (Northern Ireland) and Bristol (south-west), these gatherings, with the slogan “Enough is enough” in reference to the arrival in the United Kingdom of migrants crossing the Channel on inflatable boats, were marked by violence against two hotels housing asylum seekers.

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Anti-fascist protesters demonstrate against the “Enough is Enough” movement in Weymouth, UK, on ​​August 4, 2024 © AFP – JUSTIN TALLIS

In Rotherham (north), more than 700 people, according to police, gathered, smashed windows of the establishment and started a fire, some shouting slogans like “Kick them out”.

Twelve police officers were injured and six people arrested, with South Yorkshire Police Deputy Chief Constable Lindsey Butterfield saying the number of arrests would increase “sharply in the coming days”.

In Tamworth, near Birmingham (centre), a hotel was targeted by attackers who in particular “smashed windows, lit fires and targeted the police”, according to the latter.

The country has not seen such an outbreak since 2011, after the death of a young mixed-race man, Mark Duggan, killed by police in north London.

According to counts carried out by the British media, more than 400 people have been arrested over the past week. Several were imprisoned Monday morning during appearances before judges.

– Courts mobilized –

“These delinquents will pay the price”, assured Interior Minister Yvette Cooper on the BBC.

“We made sure that the courts were ready, that they had additional prosecutors available,” she added. “We expect justice to be served quickly.”

The police particularly pointed the finger at the responsibility of the English Defense League, a small extreme group right created 15 years ago and whose anti-immigration actions have often been punctuated by excesses.

Certain commentators and political leaders believe more generally that the rise of a anti-immigration discourse in the political class legitimized the demonstrators.

The United Kingdom has been confronted in recent years with the arrival each year of tens of thousands of migrants by inflatable boats, which made clandestine arrivals particularly visible.

The accommodation of asylum seekers in hotels paid for by the government sometimes created local tensions, successive conservative governments seeking to end this system without succeeding.

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