Starmer condemns ‘far-right violence’ and vows to bring those responsible to justice

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has condemned violent far-right riots in several British cities and vowed to bring those responsible to justice “swiftly.” Starmer, who has described the events as “far-right violence,” has called for this Monday an emergency meeting to address the situation. The meeting, known as ‘Cobra’ because of the space in which these types of cabinet meetings are held, aims to agree on a joint response to the outbreak of violence.

Violence instigated by far-right groups broke out this weekend in cities including… Liverpool, Bristol, Hull, Manchester and Rotherhamand has resulted in the arrest of nearly 400 people. In addition, several officers have been injured after being attacked with rocks, beer cans, bottles and chairs.

Although these groups have been organising protests for weeks, tensions rose after the knife attack on 29 July at a leisure centre in Southport, North West England, which left three girls dead and eight minors and two adults injured. The far-right spread the deception that the attacker was a migrant who had arrived by boat, when in fact he was a 17-year-old Welshman.

‘Let there be no doubt: the full weight of the law will fall on those who participated in this violence. The police will make arrests. There will be people in jail“There will be charges and there will be convictions,” Starmer said in an official statement from Downing Street.

Starmer referred to both those who “instigated action on the internet and then hid” and those “directly” involved. “I guarantee you will regret participating in these disorders,” he warned.

“If people are attacked because of their skin color or their religion, then that is far-right and I dare to say that. This is violence, it is not protest. “It doesn’t matter what the reason is,” Starmer said in a statement.

“Other minority communities were attacked, Nazi salutes in the streets, attacks on police, rampant violence along with racist rhetoric, so no, I am not ashamed to call it what it is: far-right violence,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior has announced that there will be a better protection of mosques under a new “rapid response process” designed to respond to the threat of attacks on places of worship.

In the most serious incidents, masked far-right people attacked a hotel in the city Rotherhamin the north of England, a building that used to house migrants. The attackers broke the windows of the hotel and set fire to a room on the ground floor. Another similar incident took place in the city Tamworthin north-west England, where several people smashed the windows of a hotel apparently housing asylum seekers.

The riots also pose the first major challenge for the new British Prime Minister at a time when Parliament is in summer recess, preventing MPs from debating the situation.