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Sir Keir Starmer will chair the government’s Cobra emergency response group on Monday to try and curb far right violence, as the home secretary promised that rioters will face “swift justice”.
The government has put courts on standby and additional prosecutors have been put in place to expedite the processing of rioters arrested over the weekend, Yvette Cooper said.
Ending the violence, which was sparked initially in response to mass stabbings in Southport a week ago, is the first real test of Starmer’s Labour government a month after its election victory.
The tally of arrests climbed to 420 by Sunday night, after more than a dozen cities and towns saw violence that included police clashing with protesters, shops being looted and hotels containing asylum seekers being attacked.
“We do expect swift justice to take place,” Cooper said on Monday. “We do expect those cases to be reaching court this week,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Asked whether the British Army could be deployed on the streets to curb further unrest, Cooper insisted the police have the “expertise and also the powers in terms of dealing with public order and crime, because this is crime”, adding that there were “considerable additional policing resources that forces can call upon” if violent clashes continue.
She also signalled the government will look at strengthening legislation cracking down on social media companies that allow users to incite hatred or violent unrest.
A “longer term debate about the wider legal framework” is required, Cooper said on Monday, when asked whether the UK’s Online Safety Act should be broadened or toughened in response to the past week of disorder.
Critics have warned that disorder has been “whipped up” online and fuelled by disinformation and misinformation disseminated on social media.
She said social media companies were already subject to clear requirements to remove criminal material “but sometimes take too long to do so”.
In addition, there are “other areas where they have made commitments around their terms and conditions that are supposed to be enforced, but are not being done so”, she warned.
Cooper told the BBC it was “not acceptable” that efforts stepped up by social media companies during the general election campaign to remove misinformation have been wound down since polling day.
The tech companies must “recognise their continued responsibilities under their terms and conditions”, she warned, adding that there was “a wider debate about the overall legislation framework” to be had.
Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist and convicted fraudster whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been accused of stoking tensions remotely on social media. Pressed on whether the government will take action against him, Cooper said: “If it’s a crime offline, it’s a crime online.”
She added: “You can’t just have the armchair thuggery or the people being able to incite and organise violence and also not face consequences for this.
Cooper said that rioters “are not patriots standing up for their communities”, but “thugs, criminals and extremists who betray the very values our country is built on”, in an article for The Times.
Senior Conservatives also heaped censure on recent scenes of disorder.
Shadow home secretary James Cleverly, who is running for Tory leader, said on X that the violent clashes in Rotherham on Sunday “should be condemned by everybody, and those taking part should expect to be met with the full weight of the law”.
Fellow Tory leadership contender Dame Priti Patel, a former home secretary, warned that politicians should be “fully informed” before commenting on issues on social media, telling Times Radio it was “irresponsible” to parrot unverified claims spotted online.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage faced criticism for questioning whether the truth was being “withheld” from the public about the identity of the Southport attacker, before the suspect was named by a judge.
Farage had speculated on X whether the attacker had been monitored by the security services, after false information circulated online suggesting the knifeman was a migrant who had crossed the Channel on a small boat.