Has Keir Starmer turned the tide after week of riots?
After two trouble-free nights, attention turns to whether the PM can meet longer term challenges
The prime minister is warning against complacency after a second riot-free day on Britain's streets.
Telling police chiefs that "we need to maintain high alert", Keir Starmer was "clear that the country is not out of the woods yet", said Sky News.
"Clearly", Starmer "won't want to brand this a victory over 'far-right thuggery' prematurely", but some are praising him for turning the tide against the violence.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What did the commentators say?
When "thousands of anti-racism campaigners turned out" on Wednesday night, the far-right was "largely absent", said the BBC. Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, one of the UK's most senior police officers, said that this was a "turning point".
It "appears the huge number of riot officers on standby", combined with "stiff sentences of up to three years in prison already handed out by the courts", have been "an effective deterrent", said the broadcaster.
A "number of factors contributed to the facing down of the Far-Right," tweeted Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges, and "one of them was the deterrent effect of the swift, hard sentences that started to be handed down". The disorder was "billed" as Starmer's "first major test as Prime Minister", added Hodges, and "he's passed it".
But what will happen next? One scenario is that the unrest "peters out", said The Economist, but another is that it will "continue, or mutate". After a riot near an asylum hotel in Knowsley on Merseyside in 2023, "similar events continued for six weeks".
Either way, Starmer's government now has "an opportunity to craft a narrative around migration" that "eschews the simple binaries of 'bad' and 'good' that have become so commonplace", said the Financial Times.
His policies for dealing with the asylum system are "broadly quite sound": Labour has vowed to hire 1,000 more caseworkers to process the backlog of more than 80,000 asylum cases, and to end the use of costly asylum hotels that have "become a lightning rod for people in deprived communities".
Starmer should also "use the breathing space afforded by the trajectory of falling net migration to articulate a credible and hopeful message" about how migration can support the British economy at a time when the government's "fiscal belt is fastened tight".
The PM "has to find a way of ensuring that such events are less likely in the future", said Martin Kettle in The Guardian, and "this is a much longer term challenge".
He must "start the process of doing what few western governments have managed to do", which is "reducing rather than fanning public anxieties about migration, but without legitimising either the rioters or their hatred". No one "pretends that this will be easy".
What next?
Britain now heads into the weekend hoping the "civil unrest has come to an end", said Politico, but the PM insists his government is "not complacent and the threat is still alive".
Questions now "inevitably turn to how Starmer can stop the broader currents of right-wing populism and extremism". But he "may have the perfect man for the job" in his aide Morgan McSweeney, who "cut his teeth in Labour politics by defeating the far right" and will have a "key role in formulating a political strategy after this month's civil unrest".
McSweeney's "formative" experience in defeating the far right on Barking and Dagenham council "moulded his view of how to win back working-class voters by addressing concerns about community decline".
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
-
The Pentagon faces an uncertain future with Trump
Talking Point The president-elect has nominated conservative commentator Pete Hegseth to lead the Defense Department
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
This is what you should know about State Department travel advisories and warnings
In Depth Stay safe on your international adventures
By Catherine Garcia, The Week US Published
-
'All Tyson-Paul promised was spectacle and, in the end, that's all we got'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Can Europe pick up the slack in Ukraine?
Today's Big Question Trump's election raises questions about what's next in the war
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
What does the G20 summit say about the new global order?
Today's Big Question Donald Trump's election ushers in era of 'transactional' geopolitics that threatens to undermine international consensus
By Elliott Goat, The Week UK Published
-
Will Trump fire Fed chair Jerome Powell?
Today's Big Question An 'unprecedented legal battle' could decide the economy's future
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Will Donald Trump wreck the Brexit deal?
Today's Big Question President-elect's victory could help UK's reset with the EU, but a free-trade agreement with the US to dodge his threatened tariffs could hinder it
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Where did Democratic voters go?
Voter turnout dropped sharply for Democrats in 2024
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Can Ukraine win over Donald Trump?
Today's Big Question Officials in Kyiv remain optimistic they can secure continued support from the US under a Trump presidency
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published
-
Where does Elon Musk go from here?
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION After gambling big on Donald Trump's reelection bid, the world's wealthiest man is poised to become even more powerful — and controversial — than ever
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
How did Trump shift voters to the right and win?
Today's Big Question Latino voters led a national shift to the right
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published