UK PM Starmer to hold emergency meeting over riots

UK leader Keir Starmer is due to hold an emergency response meeting on Monday after more far-right riots broke out across England over the murder of three children last week.

The prime minister will chair a meeting bringing together ministers and the police to discuss how to quell the violence that first broke out in Southport, northwest England, on Tuesday.

Police have arrested hundreds of people in towns and cities nationwide, with anti-immigration demonstrators and rioters facing off against police and counter-protestors, including groups of Muslims.

The unrest follows last Monday’s tragedy in Southport in which three young girls were killed and five more children critically injured during a knife attack as they attended a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

• Bangladesh Prime Minister flees as protesters invade palace
• CSOs: We’ll monitor NNPC compliance on crude sale to Dangote Refinery

Starmer on Sunday warned rioters they would “regret” participating in England’s worst disorder in 13 years, while his interior minister Yvette Cooper told the BBC on Monday that “there will be a reckoning”.

Police have blamed the violence on supporters and associated organisations of the English Defence League, an anti-Islam organisation founded 15 years ago whose supporters have been linked to football hooliganism.

Some of the worst scenes on Sunday broke out in Rotherham, northern England, where masked rioters smashed several windows at a hotel that has been used to house asylum seekers.

At least 10 officers were injured, including one who was knocked unconscious, said South Yorkshire Police.

There were also large scuffles in Bolton, northwest England, and Middlesbrough, northeast England, where mobs smashed windows of houses and cars, leading to 43 arrests.

Protesters there seized a camera from an AFP crew and broke it. The journalists were not injured.

Late Sunday, Staffordshire police said another hotel known to have sheltered asylum seekers was targeted near Birmingham.

“A large group of individuals” have been “throwing projectiles, smashing windows, starting fires and targeting police” at the hotel in the town of Tamworth, with one officer injured, said the statement.

Shops looted, burnt
The violence is a major challenge for Starmer, elected only a month ago after leading Labour to a landslide win over the Conservatives.

“I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder. Whether directly or those whipping up this action online, and then running away themselves,” Starmer said on Sunday.

There was “no justification” for what he called “far-right thuggery”, promising to bring the perpetrators “to justice”.

MPs from all sides have urged Starmer to recall parliament from its summer holiday, including Conservative former interior minister Priti Patel, Labour MPs Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler, and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

Police have said more than 150 people were arrested over the weekend.

Rioters threw bricks, bottles and flares at police – injuring several officers – and looted and burnt shops, while demonstrators shouted anti-Islamic slurs as they clashed with counter-protesters.

The violence is the worst England has seen since summer 2011, when widespread rioting followed the police killing of a mixed-race man in north London.