The Metropolitan police commissioner has described Wednesday evening as a “successful operation” and said that communities and police working together defeated the challenges that were seen. Mark Rowley stated that it was a massive policing operation with thousands of officers on the streets, and the show of force from the police, along with the unity from communities, led to a peaceful night. While there were a couple of locations where local criminals tried to create antisocial behavior, they were arrested. Overall, Rowley concluded that it was a very successful night, with the fears of extreme right disorder being abated, thanks to the collaboration between communities and police.
‘Show of unity’ from communities and police ‘defeated challenges we’ve seen’ from far-right riots, says Met chief – live | UK news
Rowley: police and communities together ‘defeated the challenges that we’ve seen’
The Metropolitan police commissioner has described Wednesday evening as a “successful operation” and said that communities and police working togehter
In his statement Mark Rowley he said:
It was a massive policing operation. I’m really pleased with how it went. We put thousands of officers on the streets, and I think the show of force from the police, and frankly, the show of unity from communities together, defeated the challenges that we’ve seen, and it went up very peacefully last night.
He added that there were “a couple of locations where local criminals turned out to try and create a bit of antisocial behavior and we arrested a few of them” but he concluded:
It was a very successful night, and the fears of sort of extreme right disorder were abated. So, a successful operation, thanks to communities and police.
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Key events
Sadiq Khan pays tribute to police and ‘those who came out peacefully to show London stands united against racism and Islamophobia’
Sadiq Khan has paid tribute to police officers and thanked those who demonstrated “peacefully” on Wednesday night to “show London stands united against racism”.
In a statement, the Mayor of London said: “I would like to pay tribute to the outstanding work of our police officers across London last night. And to those who came out peacefully to show London stands united against racism and Islamophobia last night – thank you.
“We have seen appalling violence and disorder in towns and cities across the country in recent days, but there was no repeat in our capital overnight. The Met has worked tirelessly to make it clear that such violence will not be tolerated and that anyone seeking to engage in disorder and sow division would face the full force of the law.
“I remain in close contact with the Met Commissioner and local people will continue to see an increased police presence across areas of London in the coming days as they seek to reassure and protect our communities.
“I’m clear that there is no place for violence, racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism in our city and we will never let those who seek to divide our communities win. London is proud of our diversity and of being an open and welcoming city, and always will be.”
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Labour’s police minister: ‘we will come for you’ if you have been inciting violent disorder online
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Labour’s policing minister Diana Johnson has said that people inciting violent disorder online will also face justice, saying “we will come for you just as much as we will come for you for what you do on the streets”.
She told viewers:
It’s not just those physical acts on the street that we’re going to make sure people are brought to account for, but it’s also what’s happening online.
And that’s really important. This week, we saw the first person being charged and convicted of what he’d done online, inciting violence, racial violence. And that is important.
If you do stuff online we will come for you just as much as we will come for you for what you do on the streets of our country if you are carrying out criminal disorder and violence.
She said that over 400 people have been arrested, and said “I’m hoping and I know that number will increase today,” adding “We’ve got over 140 people charged, that number will go up as well, and we will start to see again today, more people going into court and receiving sentences.”
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Police minister Diana Johnson has said it is matter for football and rugby clubs themselves if they want to take banning action against people convicted of being part of far-right violent disorder over the last few days.
PA Media reports she told listeners of LBC:
I think all options are being looked at, to be honest, and I am pretty clear that most football clubs do not want to be seen to have football hooligans and people carrying out criminal acts on the streets of the local communities in their stands on a Saturday.
So I think that’s a very live debate that’s going on at the moment, and I think there are consequences for people’s bad behaviour on our streets and their criminal activity, and if that’s what football clubs or rugby clubs choose to do, that’s a matter for them, but all tactics and all options should be looked at.
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Tory leadership candidate Mel Stride: Farage’s Southport comments were ‘deeply unhelpful’ and fuel for conspiracy theories
Conservative leadership candidate Mel Stride has criticised Reform UK leader Nigel Farage over comments he made last week about the stabbing of children in Southport, describing the Clacton MP’s comments questioning whether “the truth is being withheld” as “deeply unhelpful” and accusing him of providing fuel for conspiracy theories.
Speaking on Sky News, Stride told viewers, after England and Northern Ireland had seen days of far-right anti-immigrant violence on the streets:
I think one element to this debate that has been skated over, and shouldn’t have been actually, [are] the remarks made by Nigel Farage.
For example, when they terrible incident in Southport first occurred, his suggestion that the police might have not been telling the truth about that situation, I think helped fuel conspiracy theories around what was happening [and] was deeply unhelpful.
I think linking what happened in Southport with the terrible incident that happened regarding a uniformed soldier in Kent over the last week is also a very unfortunate linkage. And particularly suggesting that perhaps terrorism might have been involved when the authorities are saying that it hasn’t.
And I think those things are examples of the kind of language and interventions that at a moment of crisis are deeply unhelpful. I think that’s why we need level heads and moderation, as well as very firm action.
In the video last week, which is still available on social media platform X, Farage said after news broke that a third girl had died as a result of the stabbing attack:
Well, it’s pretty horrendous a third young girl has died as a result of the stabbings yesterday in Southport. I obviously join everybody in my horror at what has happened. I know the prime minister went to lay flowers and was heckled, and it shows you how unhappy the public are with the state of law and order in our country.
I have to say there are one or two questions. Was this guy being monitored by the security services? Some reports say he was. Others less sure. The police say it’s a non-terror incident, just as they said the stabbing of an army Lt Col in uniform on the streets of Kent the other day was a non-terror incident.
I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us. I don’t know the answer to that. I think it is a fair and legitimate question. What I do know is something is going horribly wrong in our once beautiful country.
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Conservative leadership contender Mel Stride has been asked about comments made by fellow leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick, and said that he does not agree with Jenrick that saying Allahu Akbar on the streets should automatically be an offence warranting an arrest.
He told Sky News viewers:
Well, I would disagree with that position, because I don’t think that in all circumstances that somebody shouts that term on the streets in London, they should immediately be arrested.
Now that doesn’t detract from the fact that where there is clear intimidation, where is clear incitement to violence, engagement in violence, that there shouldn’t be a robust response. And Robert and I are in total agreement in terms of not tolerating any of that kind of behaviour.
I just don’t agree with a statement that says that effectively under all circumstances where somebody shouts those words, that translates as broadly God is the greatest, that they should be immediately arrested. I just don’t think that is a is an appropriate position to take.
Sky News presenter Wilfred Frost tried to engage Stride with questions about whether this difference of views meant he would or wouldn’t be able to work with Jenrick in the future after the leadership contest, but Stride shut that line of questioning down with a curt “I’m not gonna speculate about what any candidate might do in the event that they win.”
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Mel Stride: Conservatives can get back in government ‘in one term’ with right leader
Conservative leadership hopeful Mel Stride has been quite bullish this morning on the party’s electoral prospects in the future, claiming that with the right leader, the party could be back in power after just one term of Keir Starmer’s Labour government. He told Sky News viewers:
If we have the right leader, he unites the party and does the hard yards of the policy platform development that we will need to reach out to those people that we lost to Reform – and there are issues there around migration, net migration, lower taxation – but equally appreciate the fact that we’ve got to reach out to those Labour and Liberal Democrat voters who were previously Conservatives. We’ve got to do both those things.
If we can do that, and we can reform our party machine, so that it is a really powerful, dynamic local campaigning machine, and that needs a lot of reform, and we need to do well in the [local] elections in May as a consequence of that reform, then we can get back in one term.
This is a government that got in with the lowest share of the popular vote of any government in history. In fact, for those that were able to vote in this election, only one in five voted Labour. It is quite possible for us to turn this around in one cycle, and to win the next general election.
But we need the right leader to do that fundamental change that the party needs now.
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Tory Mel Stride: police have done a good job ‘in very, very difficult circumstances’
Conservative Mel Stride has praised the police for “getting the balance right” in dealing with the “mindless thuggery” of the last few days, and said that he was “undoubtedly” encouraged by the lack of violence last night.
The leadership hopeful told Sky News viewers:
I think that is a tribute to the police. And I think they have done a very good job in getting in amongst the situation. Taking robust policing, getting that balance right, and also of course, getting the judiciary involved, getting people through the courts. We’ve already seen some sentences meted out already, as a clear deterrent to those that would otherwise get involved in this mindless thuggery that we’ve seen over the last few days.
Stride expressed broad support for how the government had handled the situation, saying:
This has been a really difficult moment for our country. A moment of fairly acute crisis. It is very important that opposition and everybody in public life does what they can to be moderate, and take robust action, certainly, but also be moderate in the way that we approach it. And I think that does extend to the view that one takes the actions of the government. The reality is that the police have done extraordinarily I think, good job in very, very difficult circumstances.
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Labour’s policing minister Diana Johnson said she believed that most MPs in parliament, regardless of party, had been supportive of the government’s response to the far-right violence seen on the streets of England and Northern Ireland in recent days.
She told viewers of Sky News:
I think that the vast majority of members of parliament understand that they need to stand for their communities, and the vast majority for people in their communities who are law abiding and tolerant.
So I have done briefings with MPs, members of the House of Lords, cross-party to try to ensure that all MPs understand what is happening. To feed in any questions that they have to the system.
But the vast majority of MPs that I’ve been speaking to have been supportive of the action taken to clamp down on that criminality on our streets.
I think obviously, we’re in the middle of a Conservative leadership election, and clearly there’s positioning and posturing going on there, but I think my overall view is that members of parliament are supportive of the action of the police and of the government.
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Labour’s policing minister Diana Johnson has said that MPs have a responsibility for “being moderate in their language” after being asked about Robert Jenrick’s comments yesterday.
Jenrick, who is one of those contesting the leadership of the Conservative party sparked criticism when he said “I thought it was quite wrong, that somebody could shout about Allahu Akbar out on the streets of London and not be immediately arrested”. While the phrase has been associated with Islamist terrorism, it is simply the Arabic for “God is great”, and is used every day by Muslims in prayers.
Robert Jenrick says people shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ should be arrested – video
Johnson told viewers:
I think all politicians at this stage need to be very careful about the language that they use. The country over the last few days, you know, the terrible events in Southport, I think the country has been very shocked by that tragic event and then the public disorder that we’ve seen.
So I think all politicians have a role in being moderate in their language, supporting the police, and speaking on behalf of the law abiding majority in this country. That’s what I would say all politicians should be doing at this stage.
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Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Metropolitan police commissioner Mark Rowley has confirmed that his force are actively carrying out operations this morning. He told listeners:
We’ve been out doing some dawn raids this morning, the people who were most violent in the Whitehall protests and violence last week … about 70% of them have got criminal backgrounds.
We’ve got criminal damage, violence, weapons offences, football banning orders. These are criminal thugs. Any suggestion that they’re patriots, or they’ve got a cause that they’re protesting about is nonsense, and frankly, most of them are going to be charged with violent disorder and most of them are going to prison for a few years.
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Northern Ireland assembly to meet at noon to discuss violence in Belfast
Prime minister Keir Starmer has resisted calls for parliament to be recalled, but the Northern Ireland assembly in Stormont will convene a plenary session today at noon to discuss recent scenes of violent disorder on the streets of Belfast.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is set to lead a rally outside the meeting in opposition to the rioting, PA Media reports.
MLAs will debate a motion condemning “criminal damage and targeting of businesses in recent days”. Traditional Unionist Voice MLA Timothy Gaston has tabled an amendment to the motion demanding that the assembly support “the right to peaceful protest, including against uncontrolled immigration”.
During a visit to Belfast yesterday, Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn condemned “racist violence” in Belfast in recent days and stressed that it “does not represent Northern Ireland”.
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Labour’s policing minister: previous government ‘hollowed out’ neighbourhood policing
Labour policing minister Diana Johnson has criticised the previous Conservative government for “hollowing out” the police force over the last 14 years.
Asked on Sky News if she felt police had the right resources to tackle the type of violent disorder seen on the streets of England and Northern Ireland in recent days, she said:
We’re four weeks into a Labour government. One of our promises in the manifesto was we want to increase police numbers in neighbourhood policing. We think that’s been hollowed out over the last 14 years.
We know we’ve got a lot of young officers in service because there was a massive cut to the police in the last 14 years. At the tail end of the previous government, they did increase numbers again, but that’s a lot of young, inexperienced officers, who are doing a remarkable job, I have to say.
So I think there are some questions about how we go forward, making sure that our officers have the training and the leadership that they need, but I am really very proud of what the police have been able to do over the last few days, facing this level of criminality on some of the streets in our country.
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Policing minister Diana Johnson says ‘good’ we didn’t see ‘disorder and criminality’ but ‘this is just the start’
Asked if she felt things had turned a corner, Labour’s policing minister Diana Johnson said she was “cautious” about what happened last night, saying “It’s good that we didn’t see the level of disorder and criminality on our streets that we have in previous days. But obviously this is just the start.”
She told Sky News she wanted to pay tribute “to the work of our police officers up and down the country. Over the last few days, some of them have faced violence and abuse. They put themselves in harm’s way on behalf of keeping us all safe. So I think we need to pay tribute to them. I also want to pay tribute to the leaders of the policing community.”
Johnson attributed the lack of expected violence last night to “the presence of the police on our streets, combined with the consequences that people are now seeing for the actions that they’ve taken … over 400 people arrested … over 120 people charged.”
She said “There are consequences for the criminality on our streets, and I think that swift justice that we’re seeing is also helping to make people think twice about getting involved on the streets.”
ShareHelen Livingstone
Via my colleague Helen Livingstone, here is a round-up of how the press in the UK covered last night:
UK headlines were dominated by far-right rallies and the protesters who set out to counter them, with much of the expected violence failing to materialise. Even as shops shut up early and local police forces in England and Wales braces for unrest, far-right gatherings either did not take place or were outnumbered by counter-protesters who formed human chains around asylum centres.
The Guardian splashed on “Thousands take to the streets to counter threat from far right” with a picture of crowds in Walthamstow, east London waving placards reading “Refugees welcome” and “Stop the far right”.
The Daily Telegraph ran with “Britain shuts up shop over riots threat”, reporting that MPs had been advised to work from home while GP surgeries closed and shops boarded up their windows, with a picture of a man hammering up plywood across the front of a Samaritans charity shop in Southend, Essex.
The i headlined on “Far-right rioters face football ban as ministers bid to curb unrest”, writing that rioters involved in violence could be barred from matches as “police probe links with hooliganism”.
Read more here: ‘Standing together’: What the papers say about far-right rallies and counter-protests
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Shamann Freeman-Powell, speaking to viewers from Walthamstow, just gave viewers of Sky News a rundown of some places where there had been minor trouble last night. She said:
In Portsmouth near a Border Force agency, some people there were holding up banners saying “save our kids” and chanting some of the same sort of sentiments. In Aldershot as well, officers said that they had to separate some opposing protesters as tempers did flare. In Bristol one arrest was made after a brick was thrown at a police vehicle.
ShareArchie Bland
Last night’s counter-protests were the subject of our First Edition newsletter today, with Archie Bland looking at how events unfolded:
It is too early to say with certainty why the far right were so heavily outnumbered last night, but we can make some educated guesses.
The extremists are not centrally organised, and it’s not like there was a sign-up sheet being distributed: it may be that there were never that many people who intended to show up in the first place. The mugshots, charges and prison sentences that have already been handed out to some of the perpetrators of the recent violence may have made others realise the risk of following in their footsteps.
The well-publicised extent of the police presence at potential flashpoints could also have been off-putting. And for those who did turn up, the presence of overwhelming numbers of counter-protesters may have led to a loss of nerve – and either very limited actions, or a decision to slink quietly away.
That is not to say that the night passed off wholly without trouble: in Blackpool, Aldershot, Portsmouth, and Chatham in Kent – as well as a few other places – there were confrontations between the two sides, or episodes of vandalism and intimidation. But those flashpoints were in the minority. Here are a few of the stories of what happened everywhere else.
Read more here: Thursday briefing: The story of the night when the far right were outnumbered
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Rowley: police and communities together ‘defeated the challenges that we’ve seen’
The Metropolitan police commissioner has described Wednesday evening as a “successful operation” and said that communities and police working togehter
In his statement Mark Rowley he said:
It was a massive policing operation. I’m really pleased with how it went. We put thousands of officers on the streets, and I think the show of force from the police, and frankly, the show of unity from communities together, defeated the challenges that we’ve seen, and it went up very peacefully last night.
He added that there were “a couple of locations where local criminals turned out to try and create a bit of antisocial behavior and we arrested a few of them” but he concluded:
It was a very successful night, and the fears of sort of extreme right disorder were abated. So, a successful operation, thanks to communities and police.
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Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning, and welcome to our ongoing coverage of UK politics on a morning when most of the headlines are about broadly peaceful anti-racism demos. The man in charge of London’s police has described the evening as a “successful operation” when communities and police came together. Met commissioner Mark Rowley said “I’m really pleased with how it went”. We are expecting to hear from policing minister Diana Johnson, and Conservative MP Mel Stride is also on media duties this morning.
It is Martin Belam with you for the next few hours. You can get in touch at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2024/aug/08/anti-racism-protests-far-right-riots-uk-politics-live-updates