- Another emergency meeting of senior ministers and police leaders was held.
- In England, police revealed that nearly 500 people had been arrested.
- “It is important that we do not stop here,” Starmer told reporters.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed Thursday to maintain intensive efforts to stop further far-right riots in English cities, as more people were sentenced for their role in the unrest.
Starmer chaired another emergency meeting of senior ministers and police leaders later on Thursday to plan for potential trouble in the “days ahead”, with top constable Gavin Stephens warning that those “bent on violence and destruction have not gone away”.
Starmer also said the criminal justice system would continue to “work quickly” to convict those already arrested during a week of near-nightly rioting across England and Northern Ireland.
The province's devolved assembly was called back from its summer recess after another night of rioting in Belfast, where five people were arrested and one police officer was injured.
Northern Ireland police have said the violence there has been fuelled by pro-UK loyalist paramilitaries.
In England, police said nearly 500 people had been arrested for suspected involvement in the riots and a judge in Liverpool, northwest England, jailed several more people for their role.
The unrest, which began with a knife attack on July 29 that killed three children, has seen mosques and immigrant-related facilities attacked along with police and other targets.
Authorities have blamed misinformation spread on social media about the suspected perpetrator for fuelling the unrest.
Protests against racism
“It's important that we don't stop here,” Starmer told reporters as he visited a mosque and met community leaders in Solihull, western England.
Starmer attributed the easing of overnight unrest to “the deployment of large numbers of police officers in the right places, giving communities peace of mind”.
Wednesday night passed largely peacefully.
Instead of the far-right gatherings at dozens of sites linked to immigrant support services that police had been preparing for, thousands of anti-racism and anti-fascism protesters staged peaceful demonstrations.
They gathered in cities such as London, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool and Newcastle.
“Whose streets? Our streets!” chanted thousands of people in Walthamstow, north-east London, where hundreds of pro-Palestine supporters joined the demonstration under a heavy police presence.
In a post on X, London Mayor Sadiq Khan thanked “thousands of Londoners who came out last night to protest against racism” as well as the “heroic police force working to keep Londoners safe.”
Although the incident in Walthamstow passed off peacefully, the capital's Metropolitan Police said on Thursday that its officers were “urgently” investigating a video filmed there.
In it, a now-suspended Labour councillor told the crowd that far-right rioters needed to have their “throats cut”.
London's Metropolitan Police later released a statement saying a man in his 50s had been arrested.
'Thugs and criminals'
The UK government has put 6,000 specialist police officers on standby across England to deal with potential flashpoints after far-right social media channels called for a number of immigration-related sites to be targeted.
Metropolitan Police Chief Mark Rowley, who ordered thousands of officers onto the streets of the capital on Wednesday, praised the police's “show of strength” and “demonstration of community unity”.
Rowley said there had been a small number of arrests due to “some local criminals” engaging in anti-social behaviour in some places, but that fears of “far-right disorder” had been allayed.
The National Police Chiefs' Council announced on Thursday that 483 people had been arrested since the troubles erupted on July 30 and that 149 charges had been laid.
That number “will continue to increase significantly,” the police force said.
London police said Thursday that officers had made 10 more arrests overnight, a week after protests outside Downing Street in Westminster turned violent.
Rowley, who took part in the dawn raids, said those arrested “are not protesters, nor are they patriots or decent citizens.”
“They are thugs and criminals,” he said, adding that most had previous convictions for weapons possession, violence, drugs and other serious crimes.
After courts began handing down jail sentences for offenders linked to the unrest on Wednesday, more defendants appeared in the dock for a second day across the country.
The riots erupted after three girls, aged nine, seven and six, were killed and five boys seriously injured during a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, north-west England.
False reports on the Internet had suggested the suspect was an illegal immigrant and a Muslim.
The suspect was later identified as 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, born in Wales. British media reported that his parents are from Rwanda, a Christian-majority country.
The unrest, the worst in Britain since the 2011 London riots, has prompted several countries to issue travel warnings for the UK.
