Courts across the UK are handing down a raft of sentences to those involved in the far-right riots that have gripped parts of England and Northern Ireland this the past week, amid fears of further violence this weekend.
Many cases have already been rushed before judges over the past few days, with the longest sentence handed down so far being three years in prison, after Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed that rioters would feel the “full force of the law”.
The UK government will hope that harsh sentences, delivered swiftly, will deter further disorder as concerns grow that the start of the football season this weekend could spark more riots.
The wave of far-right violence was initially triggered by the killing of three young girls in a mass stabbing at a dance studio in the northwestern English town of Southport on 29 July.
Fuelled by misinformation online, xenophobic groups were quick to blame the UK’s Muslim and immigrant communities — an accusation which has since been proven baseless — and began attacking Muslim and foreign-owned businesses all over the country, as well as individuals themselves.
The anger has since spiralled, whipped up by far-right agitators and even tech billionaire Elon Musk on his social media platform X, over false allegations of media bias and a two-tier policing system.
Things seemed to change on Wednesday evening after police braced for another series of riots but were instead met with thousands of peaceful anti-racism protestors on the streets.
Nevertheless, minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told the BBC on Friday that the government was heading into the weekend “in a state of high readiness”, noting the speed at which courts were dealing with offenders and the specialist police officers deployed to quell any unrest.
In a separate interview with Sky News, Thomas-Symonds advised against people attending peaceful anti-riots protests while police forces have been stretched to deal with the crisis.
“Having spoken to police officers yesterday about the strain that they are under, the hours that they are working, I certainly don’t think it helps for politicians to be encouraging even more people out on our streets,” he said.
“Nonetheless, we should make that distinction between that tradition of British peaceful protest — which is very much part of our politics –— and the violent thuggery we’ve seen on our streets,” he added.
Some of those arrested so far in connection with the riots have been children as young as 11, with one 15-year-old boy admitting to throwing a paving slab at someone’s head and a 14-year-old pleading guilty to shooting fireworks at a crowd.
