Keir Starmer understood the importance of a swift and visible response to the rioting and disorder this summer, regaining control of the streets and asserting law and order. But the prime minister risks leaving this job half done if, having been tough on the violence, the government’s response to the riots is not also tough on the causes of disorder too.
A plan for renewal after the riots is not primarily about repairing physical damage to high streets, police stations or hotels. That was, thankfully, not extensive in most places. What will endure much longer are the psychological scars and fears of those terrifying scenes. This was by some distance the most orchestrated racist violence witnessed in Britain in this century.
Keir Starmer told Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday that the best response to the “easy answers” of populism is delivery. He is right that the issues of economic growth, NHS waiting lists, energy bills and the condition of local areas will do most to determine whether voters choose to re-elect the government – or reject it before it gets the chance to pursue the decade of national renewal that the prime minister believes is necessary.
Fixing potholes matters – because they are also symbolic of the condition of the public realm, and respect for the places that people live. But the centre-left should not lapse into thinking that, if a government delivers on local economic and infrastructure challenges, then community relations will begin to look after themselves. The reason why some people are fearful, suspicious or angry about what they imagine may be going on in the local mosque does not have very much to do about the condition of the road as you drive past.
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Rapid and unchecked online misinformation after the Southport killings contributed to the targeting of Muslims and asylum seekers — despite those groups having no connection to the tragic events. Stronger pressure is needed on social media platforms about their responsibilities — especially when users incite violence and stir up hatred.
But the deeper question is why misinformation is generated, shared and believed. Addressing the causes of disorder means tackling the anxieties, fears and prejudices held towards people from some groups in our society.
Around one in ten people were sympathetic to the violence or disorder — supporting, condoning or justifying it. What extreme groups try to do is to heighten fears about the threat posed by an “out-group” — such as Muslims or asylum seekers — in the hope of radicalising people into believing that the future will be violent, making violence legitimate as supposed self-defence, or as a way to demonstrate anger.
So there is a clear need for intentional action on community cohesion to help prevent the violent unrest of this summer happening again. For too long, there has been a vacuum instead of a strategy. Ted Cantle, who wrote the seminal community cohesion report after the 2001 riots in northern mill towns, notes that there is still no effective strategy two decades later. The pattern has been one of reactive flurries of responses to each crisis – but without putting a sustained plan of action in place. Government can’t do it all – but it can lay the foundations and offer leadership.
‘After the riots’, a new report published today by leading cohesion voices British Future, Belong and the Together Coalition, examines what happened this summer and why, with a 12-point plan to help build more connected and resilient communities.
It calls for sustained efforts to increase meaningful contact between people from different backgrounds — something that has grown over time but remains unevenly spread by geography, age and education. Every school can contribute to extending that further in every generation. Every local authority also needs a plan to monitor tensions and risks – and support to respond effectively to unpredictable shock events.
Those sanctioned for involvement in disorder, some as young as 12, cannot just be written off. One option would be pilot programmes using restorative justice to bring about some useful contact to humanise those groups who were targeted.
The government should listen to people’s “legitimate concerns”, whether about immigration, integration or economics – not because of the riots but because it is the job of democratic governments to do so. But legitimate concerns are expressed through legitimate means — voting, debate and lawful protest — not by throwing rocks at police or terrorising people going to pray at the local mosque.
This Autumn, the prime minister should speak up for the vast majority — the 75% who strongly opposed the violence and disorder and saw the real values of Britain represented in the morning after clean-up campaigns. He should set out, too, a vision and plan for how his government will respond to the riots and put in place the foundations for resilience and cohesion to help ensure they do not happen again. Hoping this summer was a one-off aberration is too great a risk.
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