Far-right riots: Starmer to announce setting up of new violent disorder unit

25 comments

1. This is just going to cause more issues. Especially as they only mention the far right as the justification for setting this up.

   Perfect chance to say “in light of recent events, including far right riots across the country and rioting in Leeds”

   That’s all you need to do to shut up anyone claiming bias. But you do it this way and give them justification to claim bias.

   Edit: to be very clear. People are saying the unit will target all extreme ideologies. Of course it will. I didn’t claim otherwise.

   The justification they quote for holding this meeting and creating this unit. Is the far right riots.

   >A new national violent disorder unit is to be set up to clamp down on rioters, the Guardian has learned, in the wake of far-right riots this week.

2. “The unit is intended to improve the gathering and sharing of intelligence on known “extremist troublemakers” from all parts of the ideological spectrum. ”

   Good idea, so long as this doesn’t mean they will marry the targets and have kids with them whilst undercover.

3. Sounds good. Fascist thugs out there rioting deserve to be cracked down on hard.

4. Perhaps controversial but I’m not particularly keen on the idea of just spawning units/committees/inquiries off the back of incidents, it’s rather reactionary. Better intelligence sharing between forces is obviously needed but I think it needs to be thought about a bit more holistically. The fact this, by the sounds of it has been dreamt up in No10 and not by the Police aka the ones who you’d think would know what would actually help is also somewhat alarming.

5. > The unit will aim to boost intelligence gathering and sharing on looming trouble and comes after police were surprised by the scale of disorder on Tuesday in Southport, with further disorder in London and Hartlepool on Wednesday.

   I wonder if this has anything to do with a decade of Tory government systemically overlooking (and at times contributing to) the growing threat of the far-right? It really shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that there are networks of far-right thugs who organise ‘protests’ over the internet.

   EDIT: A lot of 2 months old accounts in this thread are very opposed to this news, weird.

6. If those lads are on UC they’re clearly not spending 40 hours a week job hunting like they promised in the contract they signed down the job center so they should have their benefits docked.

   Get people in work and off benefits so their income is tied to a job they can lose for being a nuisance. That’s how you stop riots.

   Nobody their age should have free time midday on a Monday to smash up the country when the rest of us work.

7. Tony Blair is warming up his ID card idea for another go.

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10. Pretty concerned my dad might get arrested for sharing this stuff and encouraging the riots on his very openly fash social media. 

    Like… We all make our choices, I guess. But seeing your parent get so consumed by this poison has been a sad and confusing ride.

11. We were able as a society to crack down on football violence by empowering police to track known offenders and restrict their travel during big tournaments. We decided that the problem was too big to ignore and we put things in place to help deal with it. I hope this is similar. Too many of the ‘protesters’ last night just looked like they fell out of a pub with the intention of having a row. We are jailing eco protestors for five years, it’s not like precedent hasn’t been set.

12. We will be working alongside local community leaders to address concerns and ease tensions.

    Wait wrong demographic

13. This will 100% be used primarily against climate activists

14. lol I voted Labour but it is getting funny Starmer setting up a “task force” or “unit” for absolutely everything.

    Feels like code for we’re not gonna do anything but make it look like we are.

15. The same guy who kneeled during the summer of love when people were trashing the country over something that happened in America and literally just saw massive riots a week ago in Leeds, now decides it’s time to take control? We know exactly where his priorities lie, don’t we?

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17. Finally , some action! These extreme right wing extremist buffoons should be dealt with an iron hand. They’ve taken advantage of a tolerant society for far too long.

18. Remember when we all thought the public order act was a threat to democracy and human/civil rights in the country and was deemed oppressive, as it was intended to silence protestors?

    And we were encouraging Labour to scrap it, if they won the election?

    Anyone? No?

19. Oh lovely! I love the surveillance state and hordes of police breathing down my back!

20. Surely there already is one –

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Domestic_Extremism_and_Disorder_Intelligence_Unit?wprov=sfla1

21. Interesting that this is what prompted movement on that front and not, you know, Islamism, Izzy-Pally nonsense, etc etc.

22. As long all riots are treated similarly.

    We’ll just have to see.

23. They announced this after a load of white people riot but when it was a load of none whites rioting the other week, that was what, fine?
    Not only that, the police were out in force this week yet last week, didn’t bother to show up?

    Did they not think that this is just more ammunition for the EDL lot to use? Quite clearly treating one set of people differently to others..

24. How will this stop children being murdered?
    Or is this announcement entirely about quelling natives who are upset about murdered children?
    Most sensible people in this country consider the former much worse than the latter.

25. Make it a criminal offence to spread lies and/or disinformation that leads to disorder. When the media and the likes of Farage, Fox and Yaxley-Lennon whip up this stuff fine them. Hit them in the pocket and make it big so spreading the shit they do costs them.

    If the left are doing it too… fine them too.

    At least then the money that all this violence is generating might end up helping the communities it is affecting and not in the pockets of these waste of space populists.