Keir Starmer faces the far right

Unprecedented violence in the United Kingdom continued Sunday, with at least two hotels housing asylum seekers being targeted. This is a test for the Prime Minister, who has been in office for just a month.

It’s a crisis he didn’t see coming, but Keir Starmer has no intention of leaving his country in the hands of rioters. The United Kingdom has been in the grip of unprecedented violence for more than ten days. After the death of three young girls in a knife attack in Southport on July 29, anti-migrant protesters gathered again on Sunday, August 4 in a dozen towns. They attacked the police and at least two hotels housing asylum seekers.

Since the beginning of the week, Keir Starmer has been issuing a series of firm messages. In a solemn statement on Sunday evening from Downing Street – whose façade is lit up in pink at night – in tribute to the three murdered girls, the Labour leader was very clear. Arrests, prosecutions, convictions: the response from the police and the justice system will be swift.

“I guarantee you will regret having participated in this unrest, he said, whether directly or by encouraging them on social media. We have seen Muslim communities targeted, mosques attacked, Nazi salutes in the streets, attacks on police, and acts of violence accompanied by racist rhetoric. So, no, I will not hesitate to call it what it is: this is far-right brutality.“.

In his sights in particular, the English Defense League (EDL), created 15 years ago, also linked to the phenomenon of hooligans who openly campaign for a white England. For eight days, this Islamophobic movement has been fueling the hatred and the campaign of disinformation that has swept the internet.

Because the author of the attack is not an asylum seeker as content shared millions of times suggests, but a 17-year-old teenager of Rwandan origin with autistic disorders.

On the political front, does Keir Starmer have the weapons to resist the extreme right? He is already heavily criticised by Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration party, which accuses him of laxity on police and immigration issues, two subjects at the heart of the last legislative elections.

However, in this election, Reform UK broke all its records, with 4 million votes (i.e. 14% of the vote), which opened the doors to Parliament where it now has five seats.
This weekend, several of its representatives explained that rather than attacking the extreme right, the government would do better to question the discontent and deep malaise in British society.

Some commentators also explain that the rioters may have felt legitimised by the rise of an anti-migrant discourse increasingly present in the political class, including among the Conservatives. The MP Lee Anderson, since expelled from the party, for example told them to “go fuck yourself in France“When former Interior Minister Suella Braverman spoke”invasion” migration. This is the rhetoric that Keir Starmer will have to tackle head-on. In the ranks of the Labour Party, some are eagerly asking him to do so.