Will Starmer’s thug crackdown get results?

When Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Southport on Tuesday to pay his respects for the victims of the stabbing tragedy, he was heckled by locals. ‘How many more children are going to die in our streets, Prime Minister?’ called one distraught resident, as another cried: ‘Get the truth out!’ Just hours after the PM left, the roads were filled by far-right protesters after misinformation about the identity of the perpetrator spread on social media. Two days of rioting and over 100 arrests later, the Prime Minister today called an emergency press conference after urgently meeting with the country’s top police chiefs.

Starmer acknowledged that ‘fear is an understandable reaction’ to Monday’s ‘inexplicably vile’ attack – before warning the nation that the grieving families were owed justice and that the time for answering questions on the stabbing is ‘not now’. ‘I remind everyone that the price for a trial that is prejudice is ultimately paid by the victims and their families who are deprived of the justice that they deserve,’ Starmer said.