The Scotsman Bulletin Monday August 05 2024 #Riots
The Scotsman deputy editor Alan Young speaks to Westminster correspondent Alexander Brown about the political response to the rioting in England over the weekend
Transcript
00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Monday. I'm Al Neil and I'm Deputy
00:13Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our Westminster correspondent Alex Brown to
00:17talk through the main headline. Hi Alex. Morning. Let's have a look at the front page and no
00:24surprise which story we're leading on. It's the story written by Alex on the events over
00:29the weekend. The shocking scenes which we saw in many parts of England. Rioting breaking
00:38out as Keir Starmer, you can see there in the far right, thugs behind us will regret
00:46the disorder. We picture on the front page there Josh Kerr qualifying for the 1500 metre
00:54final. We've got a full round up obviously of the first weekend of premiership action
01:00and the festival is well and truly underway. Full details in today's paper. So Alex, just
01:11bring us up to date on the events over the weekend. Really shocking scenes and this is
01:18a big test for Keir Starmer's government after what, a month in power? Yeah, so I think
01:25it was, obviously we'd already seen some horrible riots begin but it feels like they escalated
01:31over the weekend. We saw the far right going towards a hotel housing asylum seekers and
01:37essentially smashing the glass, burning down doors. There was more looting around it obviously.
01:44All the while, Tommy Robinson, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, that's his real name, is sunning himself
01:49in Cyprus. So it's been really horrible. These protests have not gone away and last night
01:55after huge pressure built during the day on Sunday, Conservatives were asking where is
02:00the Prime Minister? And then he made a statement late Sunday evening where he condemned those
02:06rioting as far right thugs. He said that they will be punished, there will be no reprieve
02:12for them and that he stands with the Muslim community and he stands with the broader public.
02:19So at the same time, Yvette Cooper issued a statement, or the Home Office issued a statement
02:23with Yvette Cooper in, where they said mosques are going to get extra protection. So it is
02:28incredibly grim and at the same time, MPs from both Reform, the Tories and I think even
02:33perhaps the SNP are calling for Parliament to be recalled to address this issue. It is
02:39a huge challenge for the Prime Minister. But I think if we take a step back and we
02:43look at his record previously, he was in charge of the CPS during the London riots. So he
02:47does have form for this. And I spoke to several Glaswegian MPs or Glaswegian politicians yesterday
02:54because they've got their own concerns about a far right rally being organised in September.
02:58And there was, I would say, almost a confidence that, I think Dr Zabir Ahmed told me that,
03:04you know, he thinks Kirsten will get on with this, that the riots will be dissipated and
03:08there will be no hiding place, that the law will come down so hard and be so organised and
03:12whether that means more police courts sitting overnight, special sentences, that this will
03:18be clamped down on. So Labour are taking a strong stance. And I think the counterpoint to this is
03:25a backlash from those on the right. Nigel Farage has always issued a statement, which I believe
03:31was very late last night, which didn't make addition, saying it was two-tier policing,
03:35condemning it to the Black Lives Matter protests, and which you said, you know,
03:38the police went soft on. And at the same time, Priti Patel, a Tory leadership candidate,
03:43has told him his comments are outrageous and wrong, and it's not fair to say that. So
03:47everyone's very angry. We've got a Cobra meeting today, emergency Whitehall meetings to find out
03:52what to do. And yeah, it's a real mess. Just run us through what a Cobra meeting actually is,
03:59because we've probably heard the term but don't quite understand who's involved and what actually
04:04might come out of it. So it's not just government figures. It's not, say, you know, a committee in
04:10Parliament where you have MPs talking. It will be senior police, you know, sometimes there's
04:16military. I mean, we don't know the exact makeup. We just know that it's an emergency Whitehall
04:20meeting across departments. So they will be looking at police responses. They'll be looking
04:27to the military needs to be involved. They'll be looking at, you know, what areas need more
04:31protection, or how can we process all these people in the courts, because that's one of the
04:36other issues. And I know that, obviously, justice system is different in England and Wales. But
04:40for our readers who maybe don't know, I think, I mean, I used to be a court reporter. I think
04:44since I started, perhaps 40% of the courts in England and Wales have been sold because the
04:50government would rather make the money from selling them and then send people to courts
04:53that maybe aren't as convenient. So there's a huge court backlog. People wait years sometimes
04:59for justice. And now we have these awful riots where all these people are going to have to be
05:03tried, all these people are going to be processed. And there's also a prisons crisis in England and
05:08Wales where they're full of having to release people early. So if we take away the politics
05:13of it all, we take away the, you know, far right or bad, and how do we deal with the language around
05:18anti-immigration rhetoric that's maybe prompted this sort of thing. On a purely administrative
05:23level, this is an unbelievably complex and difficult thing for any government to deal with.
05:31And I think it's, there's an uncomfortableness among the Conservatives about how to approach
05:36this. Richard Sunak issued a statement which is really in support of the Labour's response to it.
05:41However, Conservative Home, which is incredibly influential, published a piece that said,
05:46do you miss us yet? Essentially blaming the Labour Party for four weeks of chaos,
05:50while a member of the cabinet who's just in the Lords of the Tories
05:54made this a political issue and said, Labour voted against our policing bill.
05:57However many times people are right to be angry and their anger is justified. So
06:04no one knows how to respond to this. It's just a crisis that there will be some uncomfortable
06:09decisions happening both in that meeting and outside it. Indeed. More to come, lots more to
06:16today, you would think, and in the coming days. Thanks very much for talking us through that.
06:21Alex, please keep an eye on Scotsman.com throughout the day. We'll have all the very
06:25latest news and analysis. If you can do subscribe, then you can read and watch everything that we do.
06:30And if you're out and about today, as ever, please do pick up a copy of the paper from me,
06:35from Alex. It's bye for now.