Rioters will “pay the price” for the wave of violent clashes that has spread across the country, ministers warned on Saturday, after a day in which police battled rival groups of demonstrators in the worst outbreak of civil disorder in Britain for more than a decade.
Dozens of arrests were made after the scenes of disorder, with police warning that further violence is likely in the coming days.
Multiple towns and cities in England and Northern Ireland saw clashes between anti-immigration demonstrators and counter-protesters, with police officers attacked and injured, and many more arrests promised.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the police would have the government’s full support to take the strongest possible action. “Criminal violence and disorder have no place on Britain’s streets,” she said.
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“Anyone who gets involved in criminal disorder and violent thuggery on our streets will have to pay the price and they should expect there to be arrests, prosecutions, penalties and the full force of the law including imprisonment and travel bans. There are consequences for breaking the law.”
The widespread clashes pose the first big challenge to Keir Starmer’s new government, which is facing demands to introduce emergency powers to stop further violence and to recall parliament.
On Saturday bricks were hurled at police officers in Stoke-on-Trent, fireworks were thrown amid tense exchanges between an anti-Islamic group and an anti-racism rally in Belfast, and windows of a hotel which has been used to house migrants were smashed in Hull, where three police officers were injured and four people arrested. Later video footage on social media showed shops on fire.
Several officers were also injured during “serious disorder” in Liverpool city centre, where bricks, bottles and a flare were thrown and two officers needed hospital treatment and six arrests were made. Greater Manchester police said a dispersal notice had been authorised for the city centre. Scuffles broke out as opposing groups faced each other in Nottingham’s Old Market Square with bottles and other items thrown from both sides.
Source: BBC
