The prime minister rightly frames the riots as a law and order issue, but he also needs to contend with the pernicious effects of online extremism
When a new prime minister crosses the threshold of Number 10, he or she receives briefings from the director general of MI5 and their counterpart at MI6 about the severity of known threats to security and order. So Sir Keir Starmer won’t have been oblivious to the menace posed by far-right extremists and their ability to mobilise thugs on to our streets to wreak havoc. Nor will he have been in the dark about the desire and capacity of hostile foreign states to stoke fear and foment division on our shores. What neither Sir Keir nor anyone else anticipated was an eruption of violence, across several towns and cities, within a month of his arrival at Downing Street. This is the first domestic emergency of his premiership, which makes it the first test of how he responds to challenges of this nature.
It is many years since we’ve seen such a widespread outbreak of far-right violence. In Southport, a seaside town in mourning after a murderous attack on a children’s dance party, hundreds of rioters descended to target a mosque, vandalise homes and businesses, and leave more than 50 police officers injured. In Hartlepool, officers were assailed with missiles and glass bottles, a mosque came under attack, and a police car was set alight, while in Sunderland this weekend several hundred rioters, some in balaclavas, reportedly set fire to a building. In London, there were more than 100 arrests when a far-right mob, chanting “we want our country back”, clashed with police at the gates of Downing Street and threw flares at the statue of Winston Churchill. What patriots these people are.
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