Keir Starmer sounded uncharacteristically angry as he appeared in front of a podium in Downing Street on Sunday to condemn the violent mobs causing damage and spreading fear. Just a few weeks into government, the prime minister has been confronted with an appalling triple murder of three young girls, followed by days of rioting whipped up by online disinformation that a migrant was responsible. So far, he has taken a proactive approach to tackling the violent unrest – leading visibly from Downing Street rather than letting his home secretary, Yvette Cooper, front up the response. In a statements on Friday and Sunday, Starmer has made it clear he wants the response to thuggery to be swift and decisive. He has called in the police to coordinate tactics, as well as delivering a message to Muslims and others frightened by the violence that this does not represent Britain. And he has named the forces he holds responsible – the far right exploiting a horrific tragedy to whip up disinformation and target migrants. As a former director of public prosecutions, who was involved in the response to the 2011 riots, Starmer is well placed to deal practically with a crisis in the sphere of law and order. He understands the importance of quick justice, both in getting criminals off the street to avoid prolonged violence and in deterring others from taking part when they see their fellow far-right rioters make life-ruining choices in less than week.
There has also been little criticism of Starmer’s approach from the Conservatives, with former shadow home secretary David Davis saying: “Remember, the riots started with a lie, or three lies … I don’t have that many criticisms of the government or the police on this, to be honest. “All what I would say is, perhaps they should have been faster to crush all that misinformation.” However, a bigger difficulty for Starmer lies in the politics of the situation after the initial practical response, and how he reacts to Nigel Farage’s Reform party. Its politicians claimed over this weekend that the far right were not to blame for the riots, but discontent and unease about immigration.
Labour sources say the view is that it is counterproductive to give Farage and his crew the oxygen of too much direct criticism, when the focus should be on the policing and tackling the rioters. However, others within the party are worried that Labour failing to challenge Farage more comprehensively head-on allows his anti-migrant insinuations to become part of mainstream political rhetoric, especially when he now has five MPs and received 4m votes at the election. Hostile language about migrants has become increasingly mainstream in the last five years, fuelled by those such as Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, referring to migrants as an invasion, and Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chair turned Reform MP, talking of wanting asylum seekers to “fuck off back to France” and claiming baselessly that the Labour mayor of London was controlled by Islamists. Starmer has taken the view that he needed to explicitly condemn the far right for being behind the violence – making it clear that whatever the underlying motive, causing fear, damage and disorder are never acceptable. But there may come a time soon when he needs to more strongly confront the anti-migrant rhetoric that lies behind the violence as well, whether it comes from protesters or politicians.