The storm appears to have passed – for now. After the far-right riots that had been threatened across the country on Wednesday night failed to materialise, an uneasy calm has descended.
We can thank the wall-to-wall publicisation of arrests and sentencing hearings for that. Since the violence first broke out in the wake of the Southport attack there have been, as of yesterday evening, more than 900 arrests and 466 people charged, with sentences of up to three years in prison handed down. Seeing the stunned and dejected faces of rioters facing the justice system, realising how badly they have ruined their future prospects by “getting caught up” in the moment, is a strong deterrent. The rapid deployment of thousands of police officers, along with (we can safely assume) a robust behind-the-scenes response from the security services also played an important role. So, no doubt, did the anti-fascism counter-protests on Wednesday night that dwarfed the demonstrations they were organised to oppose. They sent a message: if you think the country is with you on this, think again. Followed by an evening of cold grey drizzle, it seems that was enough to skewer the momentum that has built up.
So as the cleanup gets underway, local communities coming together to clear away debris and repair the damage from two weeks of civil unrest, the question is what comes next? It’s a question that will define the prime minister’s summer, and potentially the rest of the parliamentary term he has just won with a landslide victory.
As crises go, this one seemed well-suited to Keir Starmer’s particular skillset, at least in the immediate term. It is unusual for a prime minister’s first big test to be one he has already faced. Who could have imagined that Starmer’s role tackling the riots in August 2011 as Director of Public Prosecutions would prove a practice run for his first month leading the country? His deep understanding of the justice system, trust in and from police and security services, and ability kick the courts into a higher gear to fast-track those arrested for public disorder have proved invaluable in preventing the situation getting out of control.
The aftermath is another matter. While the proximate causes were misinformation and hate allowed to spread on social media, fanned by a few high-profile individuals with their own political agenda, this crisis is a culmination of policy areas Labour skirted around in its election campaign. The rioters cited decades of mass migration for their grievances; Labour has no clear answer, beyond a “points-based” system for visas reminiscent of Boris Johnson’s, under whose leadership legal migration soared. And while the British people are overwhelmingly in agreement that there is no justification for the violence we have seen, some of the data is impossible to ignore. Analysis by the FT found that seven of the 10 most deprived areas in England witnessed riots. There was also a correlation between hotspots of disorder and places with high numbers of migrants being housed in hotels (which were cheaper for the government than alternatives in more affluent areas) as they waited for their claims to be processed.
If those in power fail to acknowledge these circumstances, however awkward, populists will find their opportunity in the vacuum. Starmer himself knows that. The week before the Southport attack, in an eerily prescient speech at the New Statesman’s summer party, the Prime Minister told guests to look at the populist and nationalistic trends underway in other democracies and warned: “Don’t think that it couldn’t happen here.”
Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s campaign director and now head of political strategy, knows all about the risks of populism. Long before he ever met Starmer he was taking on the British National Party in Barking and Dagenham in east London. He has first-hand experience of winning back disenfranchised working-class voters who feel betrayed by mainstream politics and have felt the allure of the far-right – experience, too, of the balance of addressing those concerns without pandering to them.
McSweeney’s mission after 4 July was meant to be laying the ground for 2029 and ensuring Labour won a second term. Now he has a more urgent job to do. He and Starmer must know that a law-and-order response to these riots will not stamp the problem out. This is just breathing space. It doesn’t mean anything is fixed. The risk of further escalation remains.
To truly get a grip on the far-right currents exposed by recent events, the Labour government must do two things. First, they need to find a way to tackle the sense of alienation and hopelessness that has fuelled this disorder. An expert in extremism warned me last week that, while 85 per cent of the public oppose the unrest at protests, the 15 per cent who do not should worry us, as should the one in eight who think the rioters were representative of the views of most Britons. That, they argued, is not to do with misinformation on social media – it speaks to something deeper, to a sense that the civic infrastructure of this country has somehow broken down, meaning that normal rules do not apply.
Labour does have ambitions to tackle that, at least on paper. Mass housebuilding and planning reform to fuel economic growth. Devolution and regional development to combat the geographic distortion in the economy – the kind that sees migrants sent to areas where hotels are cheap because demand is low. A focus on skills and infrastructure (even if some of that spending has already been slashed in Rachel Reeves’s cost-cutting agenda), along with a new prisons minister more interested in rehabilitation than in the failed lock-away-the-key approach of past governments.
But it will take time, and the results will depend on international factors far outside Labour’s control. There’s a lot of luck involved.
What the government needs in the meantime is a narrative. And it doesn’t have one. There has been frustration within the Labour party that Starmer, while adept at looking stern and solemn on television as he warns rioters about the consequences of their actions, has not yet found a way to tell a story that brings the country together. A story about who we are as a nation, about British values and resilience. Tony Blair would have been front and centre with his retelling of what has just happened. So would David Cameron, a prime minister who was at his best in a crisis. Boris Johnson would no doubt have bungled the technical elements of the criminal justice response, but you can be sure he would have found a way to turn despair into a message of optimism. Starmer looks in control, but not in a way that resonates. It is the control of a manager, rather than a leader. Leaders have to be storytellers as well as technocrats.
Populists know how to tell stories. Nigel Farage has a message – clear and easy to understand, for all that it is inaccurate and misleading and deeply distortive. Senior figures within Labour were warning before the election was even called about Reform and Farage’s ability to “toxify” British politics. Those concerns must surely have gone into overdrive lately. In the absence of a narrative from Downing Street, attention will be gripped by ones shared on Twitter and TikTok.
This was a law-and-order crisis, an issue of policing and criminal justice, fermented in the cesspit of a social media ecosystem that incentivises inducing outrage and inciting hate. It is something different now. Can Starmer rise to it?
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