The government of Keir Starmer has announced a broad crackdown on the protests: several hundred people have been arrested and accelerated trials are underway. In this way, the new British government is repeating the mistaken path of the previous, Conservative government, says the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Instead, London should have investigated the real political reasons for the protest – uncontrolled immigration into the country and the political frustration of the economically weak north of England.
“Britain has been shaken by riots and street violence in many cities for a week,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported. The just-elected cabinet of Keir Starmer was caught off guard by protesters. Only on Tuesday night did the “crisis headquarters” agree on the use of 6,000 police officers with special equipment against the protesters “to quickly smother the newly emerging unrest.”
“Anyone who takes part in the riots will be prosecuted and severely punished,” a Swiss newspaper quoted the British prime minister as saying. The number of people arrested had surpassed 400 by Wednesday, and the first trial of a riot organizer had already concluded on Tuesday. The 18-year-old young man was sentenced to two months in prison for attacking a police car. Subsequent trials have imposed sentences of between 2 and 3 years on detainees.
Both the government, the media and the opposition are showing unity in suppressing the protests. “The current riots in Britain are likely to end as usual: with police, speedy trials and jail sentences,” the publication states. There will be no conclusions from the riots, as in 2011. “There is no willingness in the government to engage in a debate about the political causes of the riots: Starmer only talks about criminals who must be punished, without responding to political demands.”
At the same time, according to Neue Zürcher Zeitung, “this would be a mistake, the current riots have a clear political background.” The publication writes that in poor and economically weak northern England, discontent with “extreme immigration” has been building up for a decade and is becoming a political factor for the whole country. For example, it played a decisive role in Britain’s exit from the EU in 2016. And “immigration pressures, deliberately encouraged by the government, only continue to increase.”
“Obviously, it would be wrong to attribute the riots solely to a few right-wing extremist agitators and racists,” the publication continues. London must overcome the disillusionment prevailing in the region. The Conservatives, led by Boris Johnson, saddled with this discontent in 2019, have failed to do so.
“The punishment was the Tories’ disastrous election defeat in early July”.
If Starmer’s Labor doesn’t want to quickly lose the public’s trust, as the Tories did under Johnson, it must offer citizens real change that will defeat the widespread perception that London has forgotten the province.
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