Starmer seeks to end rioting with police 'standing army'

Sir Keir Starmer has ordered a new “standing army” of specialist police officers to be set up as he seeks to bring an end to the farright riots which have broken out across the UK in the last week.

- DAVID MADDOX AMY-CLARE MARTIN

The prime minister made the move after chairing an emergency Cobra committee meeting yesterday morning with deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, home secretary Yvette Cooper, other senior officials and leading police officers including Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.

It comes as reports suggest far-right groups intend to target 30 immigration and law centres on Thursday after sharing addresses on the messaging platform Telegram. Ms Cooper pledged that the far-right thugs face “a reckoning”, with nearly 400 people arrested after violence swept across the country over the weekend.

The Cobra meeting took place as the first cases of alleged rioters were heard in emergency sessions of courts, with the accused as young as 14 and one man sobbing as he faced justice.

The mobile force of police officers is a rare use of special emergency powers. They were first used 40 years ago, with the controversial squads drafted under the Ridley Plan to tackle the miners’ strike in 1984 and 1985.

Over the weekend Sir Keir signalled he had lost patience with “the far-right thugs” who caused civil unrest around the country in towns and cities including Southport, Liverpool, Hull, London, Rotherham and Tamworth.

But he is continuing to resist pressure to recall parliament, even as the Stormont Assembly in Northern Ireland is being recalled to discuss the riots which took place in Belfast.

The violence across the UK broke out after misinformation on social media about the alleged attacker in the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift dance club in Southport. Far-right activists descended on the seaside resort and set fire to a police car while besieging a mosque. Since then violence has spread around the country and included attacks on hotels holding asylum seekers in Rotherham and Tamworth on Sunday.