Rod Liddle: UK Correspondent says Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised swift action against the riots and protestors

The UK Prime Minister is vowing swift action as authorities brace for fresh unrest. 

There's been escalating violence in far-right riots since the fatal stabbing of three girls in a Merseyside dance class in Southport last week. 

More than 500 people have been arrested so far, and thousands of counter protesters have also mobilised across the country. 

A rioter who punched a police officer in the face in Southport has been jailed for three years - the longest prison sentence so far over the far-right disorder. 

UK Correspondent Rod Liddle told Mike Hosking that Sir Keir Starmer promises 540 jail spaces have been cleared for rioters. 

He says it should be enough spaces to deal with this, as the biggest riot saw around 40 people arrested. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Britain, we go Roderi Kitt good morning, my frame, Good
morning to you mate. I've been looking at pictures in
East London. There seem to be protests about protests, so
the anti racist protesters are out after the racist protesters
have been out, So you've got a lot of protests
going on.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yes, it's a summer of protests. It's nice weather. The
weather forecast actually is rained for the next few days,
so we might see the protests dying down a little bit.
But yeah, we've had the full frontal attacks from the
far right which have resulted in chaos in a few

(00:35):
places middles for a, Sunderland, Harleypool, Liverpool to a degree.
And now we're seeing the other side of things. And
we're also seeing a kind of re energized Asian population
attacking white folk wherever they see them. So it's all
very cholly over here.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
You ought to drop by, well said, it's funny you
should say that we have an issued one yet, but
Australia hasn't. About four other countries there are sort of
trail warnings going out about the UK. Would somebody like
key As Starmer be worried about the international reputation of Britain.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
At the moment he should be. His response to this
hasn't been great. It's been kind of knee jerked. This
is the far right, this is the far right, Well,
it's not quite. It's both more and less than that,
with not an awful lot of it is coming from
football hooligans, but that nonetheless, underneath all that lies a

(01:28):
deep dissatisfaction in the disenfranchised towns of the Northeast and
Northwest that they haven't been listened to properly about issues
such as immigration, that their towns have changed in front
of them, and that they've been cut out of the equation.
There seems to be no shrift whatsoever given to them
by Sophia Starma and that has I think it's affected

(01:51):
as opinion poll ratings, which are already well well well down.
The Holleymoon is definitely over.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
What is the sense of how the police are handling this.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Not too bad? There is a the allegation that's always
been made as this is two tier policing, that whilst
the police are quite heavy handed when it comes to
dealing with these particular protesters, they were nothing like as
bad when the pro Palestinian protesters were in London or

(02:22):
indeed the extinction rebellion protesters. That being said, the extinction
rebellion protesters and the Palestinians didn't on the whole set
fire to cars and try to break down people's doors.
So I think the robustness of the police isn't really
an issue at the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Is the system able to cope because one of Labour's
policies was to more the new government's policies was to
lit people out of prison early because there were too
many people in prison and they couldn't hold them anymore.
But I'm looking at looking at old Liam Ryan who
burst into tears and caught at age forty to day
to be seen away. If they seen all these people
away to jail the way they claim is a room
the jaw of seen all these people away.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, according to Starmer, he's freed up five hundred and
forty odd places in prisons for these people to go to,
and five hundred and forty should just about to deal
with this. So you look at Middlesbrough, which was one
of the worst riots, forty odd people arrested. My guesses
that of those you know, maybe five to ten will

(03:23):
get custodial sentences. So if he's right and he has
freed up there, I don't know how he's done that,
by the way, but if he has freed up five
hundred and thirty five hundred and forty places, then he
should be just about okay.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
What about these so called keyboard warriors that the police
keep talking about, and you know, the old Tommy's who's
on holiday wherever he's on holiday, do they actually ever
catch up with him or is that just just verbiage?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I think it's just verbuge. I mean, they're undoubtedly right that.
You know, all of these rights have been organized through Facebook,
very straightforward. I've seen the clarion call which went out
in Middlesbrough, ill spelled full of emojis, come and fight
for Britain, Come and fight for Britain and all that

(04:11):
kind of stuff. So social media has been absolutely vically
dissimilating the message of sedition out to the public. Tommy Robinson, yeah,
he is still I think, selling himself on a beach
in Cyprus, right. I don't know if he's planning to
come back. My guess is if he does come back,
he'll probably be arrested, though what for I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Okay, make a call Rod. As we've said here talking
to you on this Thursday morning, when we ring you
next week, is it over or we still got a problem.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
I think over. I think over, But we still have
a problem underneath about the levels of immigration and the
decent people. The person who said to me in Middlesbrough yesterday,
which was there's no sense in torturing cars, there's no
sense in beating up hard working immigrants who've come here

(05:02):
and devoted their lives to the community. But we've got
to talk about immigration and stop being called racist.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
What we do, all right, Rob, appreciate it. Rod a
little back on next Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
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