Keir Starmer faces calls to recall Parliament in wake of violent UK riots

05 August 2024 , 08:30

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MPs were last recalled during the summer of 2021 over the situation in Afghanistan ( Image: UK PARLIAMENT/AFP via Getty Image)

Keir Starmer will lead an emergency Cobra meeting today on the alarming violence after scenes of thugs rioting and looting across England over the weekend

Keir Starmer is facing growing demands to recall Parliament in the wake of violent disorder spreading across the country.

It comes as the Prime Minister prepares to hold an emergency Cobra meeting today with officials on the situation after scenes of thugs rioting and looting over the weekend. Towns and cities across England suffered violence including Rotherham where mobs attacked a Holiday Inn Express housing asylum seekers. 

In a direct warning to those involved, Mr Starmer said: “I guarantee you will regret taking part. Whether directly, or those whipping up this action online, and then running away themselves. This is not a protest. It is organised, violent thuggery."

But he is now facing demands to recall Parliament for the first time since the summer of 2021 during the chaotic UK evacuation from Afghanistan. MPs were also ordered to return by ex-Tory PM David Cameron in August 2011 in response to riots and looting that spread across the country at the time.

Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott tweeted: "Nationwide anti-immigrant riots on a scale never seen before. Threatening life, property and our police force. We need to recall Parliament."

Reform UK leader and Clacton MP Nigel Farage demanded MPs return to the Commons. In a statement on X condemning the violence over the week, he added: "In the short term, we will quell the riots, but deeper long-term problems remain."

Appearing to blame a so-called "population explosion", he went on: "We must have a more honest debate about these vital issues and give people the confidence that there are political solutions that are relevant to them. A recall of Parliament would be an appropriate start to this." 

Over the weekend the Tory leadership contender Dame Priti Patel and the left-wing MP Zarah Sultana also called for Parliament to be recalled. Under the existing timetable, MPs will not return to the Commons from the summer recess until September 2.

Writing in The Times, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper also said "there will be reckoning" for people who took part in the unrest and those who "whipped them up on social media and in online chat forums".

She added: "Whatever they and some of their political supporters may tell us, these are not patriots standing up for their communities," she said. "They are thugs, criminals and extremists who betray the values our country is built on." She said those responsible would be "paying the price for years to come".

Sophia Martinez