A painful reckoning awaits Britain after far-right riots

Prime Minister Keir Starmer needs to address the deeper causes of the unrest as well as punish the thugs doing the rioting.

- Adrian Wooldridge

Britain is recovering from a weekend of protests, riots and right-wing thuggery. Having enjoyed a month-long honeymoon in which he visited the Paris Olympics, hobnobbed with global leaders and announced an ambitious agenda, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now trying to reassert not just public order but also public confidence, delivering an address to the nation on Aug 4 and chairing an emergency Cobra meeting the next day.

The scale of the rioting was shocking. In Rotherham, a crowd tried to burn down a hotel housing asylum seekers. In Liverpool, rioters burned down a children's library. In Middlesbrough, hooligans roamed through residential neighbourhoods, breaking windows. Mosques were attacked, shops looted, cars set on fire.

Balaclava-wearing thugs swathed themselves in Union flags or flags of St George, turned street furniture into makeshift weapons, and shouted "We want our country back".

The unrest began in Southport on July 29 when a man killed three young girls and injured several others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party, and angry protesters afterwards hijacked a local vigil. Protests then spread rapidly - mostly in the north but also reaching some southern cities such as Portsmouth propelled by false rumours on the internet that the perpetrator of the stabbings was a Muslim refugee (he is, in fact, the British-born son of parents from Rwanda) and exploited by far-right activists who are always spoiling for a fight.

Mr Starmer has moved quickly to reassure minorities that they are safe and to warn "right-wing thugs" that they will be punished with the full force of the law.

More than 400 were arrested over the weekend, and police will now use photographic evidence from body cameras and security footage to arrest hundreds more.