13 years ago, England was hit by its worst riots in over 200 years. The current far-right violence offers both similarities and differences with the chaos of August 2011
Riots that began in Tottenham, London in 2011, left, and Southport, Merseyside in 2024, right, both led to violent disturbances across the UK Riot police battling baying masked mobs against a backdrop of burning vehicles and smashed windows.
“The challenge for the authorities is how best to respond in the face of civil disorder. It is a question that to some extent still remains a puzzle and is shared by the events of 2011 and 2024.”A year after the 2011 riots, Sir Keir, as head of the Crown Prosecution Service, looked back on the unrest and concluded that it had been the swiftness of the justice dispensed to rioters which played a role in stopping the disturbances almost as quickly as they had begun.
In 2011, one of the longest sentences was the four-year term given to two men for inciting violence on Facebook – part of a vogue for harsher punishment which later showed longer sentences than average were handed down for offences linked to the riots as courts sat 24 hours a day to process defendants.
“This idea that severe prison sentences are going make the difference is less supported by the evidence than the idea of quick and certain justice catching people and then punishing them swiftly.” That is not to say, however, that for all the similarity in tactics between 2011 and 2024, the result is public approval. In August 2011, two thirds of Britons felt the police handled the unrest well – with nearly half feeling the same of then prime minister Lord Cameron. This week, just 52 per cent thought police had handled the latest rioting well, and 31 per cent approved of Sir Keir’s performance.
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