A Painful Reckoning Awaits Britain After Far-Right Riots

Britain is recovering from a weekend of protests, riots and right-wing thuggery. Having enjoyed a month-long honeymoon in which he visited the Paris Olympics, hobnobbed with global leaders and announced an ambitious agenda, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now trying to reassert not just public order but public confidence, delivering an address to the nation on Sunday and chairing an emergency Cobra meeting on Monday.

The scale of the rioting was shocking. In Rotherham, a crowd tried to burn down a hotel housing asylum seekers. In Liverpool, rioters burned down a children’s library. In Middlesbrough, hooligans roamed through residential neighborhoods, breaking windows. Mosques were attacked, shops looted, cars set on fire. Balaclava-wearing thugs swathed themselves in Union flags or flags of Saint George, turned street furniture into makeshift weapons, and shouted, “we want our country back.”