Threat to Keir Starmer Persists As Riots Expose UK Social Divisions

Most pressingly, government and law enforcement officials see the potential for fresh violence at the weekend, after Britain witnessed its worst disorder for more than a decade in the past two weeks. Starmer’s aides do not yet think they are out of the woods and stress their priority is ensuring the rioting does not resume, Bloomberg reported.

But even if the next two days pass in relative calm, there’s a recognition in the premier’s team that the recent strife has exposed deep-seated grievances and challenges that the new government must resolve.

That includes cutting immigration, restoring the fortunes of deprived areas, and addressing the threat posed by online misinformation, racism and incitement to violence – and Starmer’s aides privately acknowledge the argument they’ll have to make is complex, nuanced and uncomfortable for some in the governing Labor Party.

“We need to hear a message to the whole of Britain about what are the legitimate concerns that many have, and which views are illegitimate,” according to Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, who said the premier should make a speech to the nation following the unrest. Starmer “has got to tell a story about what to do about the condition of Britain”

The spark for the disorder was the killing of three young girls in Southport, northwest England on July 29, combined with online posts falsely claiming the suspect was a Muslim migrant. Attacks on police officers, mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers since then led to some 500 arrests.

A further expected flare-up failed to materialize on Aug 7 when thousands of anti-racism counter-protesters and a heavy police presence neutralized the anticipated far-right disorder outside immigration-related facilities. But police and government officials view the return of England’s football season on Aug 17 as an unpredictable factor that could prove either a distraction or a vector for hooliganism. Thousands of officers will be on duty this weekend, London’s Metropolitan Police force said.

Starmer has focused on restoring calm by stressing the real consequences for those involved in the disorder. He’s ensured courts and prosecutors are quickly processing people who engaged in both the physical violence and the online incitement.

Perpetrators are already being sentenced, something the prime minister highlighted on Aug 9 in a pooled interview. “That’s a reminder to everyone that whether you’re directly involved, or whether you’re remotely involved, you’re culpable and you will be put before the courts if you’ve broken the law,” Starmer said.

But the premier also knows attention will soon turn to the difficult social questions posed by the wave of racist criminality.

Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, sees the rioters as racist thugs with no legitimate grievances, people with knowledge of his thinking said. He also believes he’s taken charge of a country whose social fabric is frayed by underlying policy problems ranging from deprivation, anti-social behavior and crime to record immigration, broken public services and communities that feel ignored.

That combination of factors helped fuel Britain’s divorce from the European Union, but remain unresolved, despite politicians including former Conservative premiers Theresa May and Boris Johnson, ex-Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Brexit architect Nigel Farage all highlighting the concerns of so-called left-behind towns.

Answering those challenges is central to the promises of change and renewal that Starmer made in the election campaign. It’s seen by his strategists as fundamental to keeping hold of the swing voters who handed him power and preventing a surge in the populist right evident in other Western countries – whose seeds were evident in 14 per cent of the national vote picked up by Farage’s Reform UK party.

Yet producing successful policies to prevent irregular migrants entering Britain by boat, fix the country’s poorly performing National Health Service, fight crime and spread economic opportunity across the country would be hard enough even if Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves was not preparing a budget of tax rises and public spending restraint forced on her by an unenviable fiscal outlook.

Labor aides explicitly blame the national malaise directly on Tory governments not meeting pledges in recent years to “level up” economic opportunities nationwide and to “stop the boats” of asylum seekers crossing from France. They are conscious that failure to deliver again may stoke tensions further.

Still, Starmer’s strategists see political opportunity in success where their opponents failed. Stronger borders and a functioning justice system and NHS would let the premier dominate the centre-ground while his Tory and Reform critics move further to the right, one said. They suggested Farage had misjudged the public mood by pushing conspiracy theories in recent weeks, arguing Reform voters were mostly disillusioned rather than extremists.

For now, the government is focusing on the law-and-order response. Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper have been speaking to senior police officers multiple times daily about operational plans, with the premier’s home affairs adviser, Harvey Redgrave, becoming a key figure coordinating communications.

A communications campaign aimed at reaching millions of people has focused on deterring future riots by amplifying lengthy prison sentences handed out to those involved, something they see as instrumental in preventing the planned demonstrations on Aug 7.

That included encouraging the BBC and newspapers like The Sun and Daily Mail to focus coverage on the consequences for perpetrators. Backed by police behavioral insight specialists, the campaign will turn to showing communities coming together once the unrest has dissipated, according to people familiar with the work.

The role of social media is also under scrutiny. Officials have been particularly alarmed by apparent efforts by far-right agitators to threaten specific mosques in an attempt to provoke a reaction from Muslims. Starmer, who’s been embroiled in a spat with X owner Elon Musk, is considering tighter regulation of social media in the UK.

Some in government have privately expressed relief that, so far, a worse crisis has been averted. It is down to luck and police efforts that no one has died in the disorder, an official said.

While there has been some irritation among Starmer’s aides over what they see as ill-judged social media posts by a few prominent Labor politicians, the vast majority accepted advice from Downing Street on how to behave. That was the first test of the government’s ability to manage its more than 400 lawmakers. The next question is whether they will stay on board with the premier’s answers to Britain’s myriad social problems.