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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.

Restaurant owner Luqman Khan clears debris from the street in front of his restaurant in Middlesbrough, England, on Aug 5, following rioting and looting the day before.

Restaurant owner Luqman Khan clearing debris from the street in front of his restaurant in Middlesbrough on Aug 5, after rioting and looting the day before.

PHOTO: AFP

Adrian Wooldridge

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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”.

A painful reckoning awaits Britain after far-right riots

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