Keir Starmer Announces "National Capability" Across Police Forces To Tackle "Mindless" Disorder

Keir Starmer has announced a new “national capability” across police forces nationwide in response to "mindless" disorder in the wake of the Southport knife attack.

Speaking in a press conference on Thursday afternoon, the Prime Minister condemned the “tiny mindless minority in our society” after unrest in the Merseyside town, describing those behind the violence as a "gang of thugs" and "far right".

The unrest saw bricks thrown at officers and a police van set on fire, while there was also disorder in Hartlepool and London after the incident on Monday in which three young girls were killed. 

There were more than 100 arrests in the capital following the disorder on Whitehall in Westminster on Wednesday, and police were injured after disorder outside a mosque in Southport a day earlier. 

"It's not protest. It's not legitimate. It's crime," said Starmer, speaking in Downing Street.

He added: "Make no mistake: whether it's in Southport, London or Hartlepool. These people are showing our country exactly who they are. Mosques targeted because they are mosques. Flares thrown at a statue of Winston Churchill. A Nazi salute at the Cenotaph."

After meeting police chiefs this afternoon, Starmer said the Government would treat perpetrators of disorder and violence like "football hooligans".

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, was also at the press conference.

The PM said “these thugs are mobile, they move from community to community" and that the country must "have a policing response that can do the same".

Listing ways in which the police would respond to far-right violence, Starmer said "shared intelligence, wider deployment of facial recognition technology and preventative action, criminal behavior orders to restrict their movements