LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday condemned what he described as “far-right thuggery” and said perpetrators would face the full force of the law after days of violent anti-immigration protests culminated in hotels being targeted.
Violent protests have erupted in towns and cities across Britain after three girls were killed in a knife attack at a children’s dance class in Southport in northwest England last week.
The murders were seized on by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups as misinformation spread that the suspected attacker was an immigrant and a radical Islamist. Police have said the suspect was born in Britain and are not treating it as a terrorist incident.
The protests have spread through cities across the country, including in Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester on Saturday, resulting in dozens of arrests as shops and businesses were vandalised and looted and several police officers were injured.
On Sunday, hundreds of anti-immigration protesters gathered by a hotel near Rotherham, northern England, which Britain’s interior minister said was housing asylum seekers.
The protesters, many wearing masks or balaclavas, threw bricks at police and broke several hotel windows, a Reuters witness said, before setting a large bin close to the hotel on fire.
“I utterly condemn the far-right thuggery we’ve seen this weekend,” Starmer said in a statement, adding it was criminal violence and not legitimate protest.
“Be in no doubt, those that have participated in this violence will face the full force of the law.”
The National Police Chiefs’ Council said 147 people had been arrested since Saturday evening and more would follow in the coming days.
Starmer, who took office a month ago after his Labour Party won a decisive election victory over the long-ruling Conservatives, said residents were in “absolute fear” from the “marauding gangs” in Rotherham.
Local police said 10 officers were injured in Rotherham during confrontations with the crowd of 700 people, some of whom threw planks of wood and sprayed officers with fire extinguishers before smashing hotel windows.
One officer was knocked unconscious and others had suspected broken or fractured bones, police said.
“The mindless actions of those today have achieved nothing other than sheer destruction and leaving members of the public and the wider community in fear,” said Lindsey Butterfield, Assistant Chief Constable at South Yorkshire Police.
Sunday’s disorder was based in smaller towns than on Saturday, including the northwest towns of Lancaster and Bolton as well as Aldershot, southern England.
Police said they arrested 14 people after a march through Middlesbrough in the northeast resulted in “mindless violence” and a public warning to avoid the town centre.
The interior ministry said mosques would be offered extra security under new arrangements after threats against them, including in Middlesbrough.
Members of the public were also urged to avoid the area around a hotel in Tamworth, central England, by local police who said “a large group of individuals are in the area and have been throwing projectiles, smashing windows, starting fires and targeting police. One officer has been injured.”
The last time violent protests erupted across Britain was in 2011 when thousands of people took to the streets after police shot dead a Black man in London. Starmer was the country’s chief prosecutor at that time.
Community leaders and families of the victims of the murders in Southport, near Liverpool, have criticised the unrest.
“Since Monday, too many people have sought to use the tragedy to create division and hate,” a group of faith leaders from Liverpool said in a joint statement.
“It can – and has – left communities in fear and has put people in danger.”
(Reporting by Suzanne Plunkett in Aldershot, Belinda Jiao in Bolton and other Reuters photographers; Writing by Alistair Smout; Editing by Jane Merriman, Frances Kerry, Christina Fincher and Daniel Wallis)
