LONDON – The UK government said on Tuesday that 6,000 specialist police were ready to deal with far-right rioting after another night of destructive troubles in English cities.
On Monday, six people were arrested and several police officers injured when they were attacked by rioters hurling bricks and fireworks in Plymouth, southern England.
Officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, were attacked as rioters attempted to set fire to a shop owned by a foreign national. Police said a man in his 30s was seriously assaulted and that they are treating the incident as a racially motivated hate crime.
A group of men who gathered in Birmingham, central England, to counter a rumoured far-right demonstration, forced a Sky News reporter off air shouting: “Free Palestine”. She was then followed by a man in a balaclava holding a knife.
Another reporter said he was chased by members of the group “with what looked like a weapon”, while police said there had also been incidents of criminal damage to a pub and a car.
Unrest broke out last Tuesday after three children were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England.
There have been hundreds of arrests around riots that have flared up since.
Justice minister Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4 that the government had freed up an extra 500 prison places and drafted in 6,000 specialist police officers to deal with the violence.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer again sought to reassure the nation that action was being taken.
He said after a cabinet meeting: “99.9% of people across the country want their streets to be safe and to feel safe in their communities, and we will take all necessary action to bring the disorder to an end.”
Mobs threw bricks and flares, attacked police, burnt and looted shops, smashed the windows of cars and homes and targeted at least two hotels housing asylum seekers at the weekend.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said Monday that 378 people had so far been arrested.
Clashes broke out in Southport the day after three young girls were killed and five more children critically injured during the knife attack there.
False rumours initially spread on social media saying the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.
The suspect was later identified as 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, born in Wales. UK media reported that his parents are from Rwanda.
That has not stopped mosques from being targeted by rioters and the government has offered extra security to Islamic places of worship.
In Burnley, northwest England, a hate crime investigation was underway after gravestones in a Muslim section of a cemetery were vandalised with grey paint.
“What type of evil individual(s) would undertake such outrageous actions, in a sacrosanct place of reflection, where loved ones are buried, solely intended to provoke racial tensions?”, local councillor Afrasiab Anwar said.
The government, only one month old, has vowed to take a tough line on the unrest.
The prime minister warned rioters on Sunday that they would “regret” participating in England’s worst disorder in 13 years.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper said “there will be a reckoning”.
Cooper also said that social media put a “rocket booster” under the violence.
Starmer stressed that “criminal law applies online as well as offline”, with arrests already being made in relation to posts made on Facebook and Snapchat.
Police have blamed the violence on people associated with the now-defunct English Defence League, a far-right Islamophobic organisation founded 15 years ago, whose supporters have been linked to football hooliganism.
The rallies have been advertised on far-right social media channels under the banner “Enough is enough”. – AFP
