It seems that the wave of riots in Britainwhich has led to hundreds of arrests over the past two weeks has subsided, but for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government Keir Starmer New, the threat still exists, according to “Bloomberg“
Government and law enforcement officials are expecting fresh violence over the weekend, after Britain saw its worst unrest in more than a decade over the past two weeks. Starmer’s aides do not yet believe they are out of the woods, insisting their priority is to ensure the riots do not resume.
Bloomberg reported that there is “a general impression within the British Prime Minister’s team that the recent unrest has revealed deep-rooted grievances and challenges that the new government must resolve.”
Those steps include cutting immigration, tackling the threat posed by online misinformation, racism and incitement to violence, and Starmer’s aides privately acknowledge that the argument they will have to make is complex, nuanced and uncomfortable for some members of the ruling Labour Party, according to Bloomberg.
Sunder Katwala, director of the UK Future Foundation think tank, said the prime minister should address the nation in the wake of the unrest, adding: “We need to hear a message to the whole of Britain about the legitimate concerns that many have.”
“Starmer has to tell a story about what to do in the case of Britain,” he continued.
The situation in Britain flared up after a young man of Rwandan origin killed three young girls in the city of Southport, northwest of the country. Fake news spread immediately after the incident, claiming that the killer was a Muslim immigrant who came to the country on a boat last year.
Although the police refuted this story after 3 days, confirming that the accused was born in Britain to an immigrant Christian family, the far-right movement has set its sights on the Muslim community and focused its hostility on it.
Far-right supporters failed to stage new protests on Wednesday amid a heavy police presence, but government officials see the return of the British football season on Saturday as an unexpected factor that could add or reduce the unrest. London’s Metropolitan Police said thousands of officers would be on duty this week.
Difficult social questions
Prime Minister Keir Starmer focused his remarks on restoring calm by stressing the consequences that will be imposed on those involved in the chaos, stressing that the courts and prosecutors are processing the data of people who participated in physical violence and incitement online.
“This is a reminder to everyone that whether you are directly or remotely involved, you are guilty and will be prosecuted if you break the law,” Starmer said.
But the prime minister also knows that attention will soon turn to the difficult social questions raised by the wave of racist crime. Starmer, a former attorney general, sees the rioters as racist thugs with no legitimate grievances, people close to him told Bloomberg.
Starmer believes he has taken charge of a country whose social fabric has been torn apart by fundamental political problems, ranging from deprivation, anti-social behaviour and crime to record immigration, weak public services and marginalised communities.
This combination of factors helped bring about Britain’s exit from the European Union earlier this year, but it remains unresolved, Bloomberg reported, even as politicians including former Conservative prime ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit architect Nigel Farage have highlighted the concerns of so-called left-behind towns.
She stressed that responding to these challenges is at the heart of Starmer’s campaign promises of change and renewal.
Siege of the far right
Bloomberg reported that Starmer still faces major challenges, while his advisers see that addressing these challenges is essential to retaining the swing voters who handed him power, and preventing the rise of the populist right in other Western countries, which won 14% of the national vote in the United Kingdom under Farage’s leadership.
She added that producing successful policies to stop irregular migrants entering Britain by boat, reform the country’s underperforming National Health Service, fight crime and spread economic opportunity across the country would be difficult enough.
Labour aides blame the national crisis squarely on Conservative governments that have failed to deliver on their promises in recent years to “level up” economic opportunities nationwide and “stop the boats” of asylum seekers crossing from France. They know that failing to deliver again could further inflame tensions.
One said his conservative and reformist critics were moving further to the right. They suggested that Farage had misjudged the public mood by pushing conspiracy theories in recent weeks, arguing that reformist voters were mostly disillusioned rather than radicalised.
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