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'Thugs should be dealt with': Rayner says ministers ‘looking at various groups’ after ‘EDL' riot in Southport
31 July 2024, 14:23 | Updated: 31 July 2024, 14:29
Angela Rayner on the Southport riot
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has hinted at a ban for the EDL after the group was accused of leading a riot in Southport on Tuesday night that saw 50 police officers injured.
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Ms Rayner told LBC's Shelagh Fogarty that the rioters were "thugs and should be dealt with" after the violence that targeted a mosque and local businesses, following the deaths of three girls in a stabbing attack.
"We have laws and we have proscribed groups and we do look at that and it is reviewed regularly," she said. "So I'm sure that that will be something that the Home Secretary will be looking at as part of the normal course of what we do and the intelligence that we have."
"But I think the bigger issue is about taking on the minority of people that have got thuggish behaviour, that actually that's not our British values."
Ms Rayner also said: "The inciting of violence and violence on the street has absolutely no place in our democracy, and we have to crack down on those that perpetuate violence and spread it within our communities."
It follows both the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, saying that those carrying out "sickening" violence would "face the full force of the law".
Police officers were left with broken teeth, noses and ankles after last night's riots in Southport, the chairman of the Merseyside Police Federation previously told LBC.
The riots broke out in Southport last night near where several children were stabbed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on Monday afternoon.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, Bebe King, 6, and Alice Aguiar, 9, were killed while taking part in a Taylor Swift dance class on Monday.
Five more children are in a critical condition. Two adults have also been left fighting for life following the stabbing spree.
Tuesday night's riot broke out just under an hour after a vigil was held for the victims of the attack.
Read More: 'Stop the violence': Mother of girl, 7, stabbed to death in Southport pleads for calm after riots
Ms Rayner said: "We'll look at various different groups but the principle has to be, we don't have thuggish behaviour in the UK, we have the rule of law.
"Now protest is important, and I absolutely believe in the right to protest, but the inciting of violence - and violence on the street - has absolutely no place in our democracy.
"And those that perpetuate violence and spread it in our communities, first of all, we have to take them on...we've got to have that argument...it's an absolute failure of politics to turn round and say 'these people here' or whatever.
"Lobbing bricks at police, setting fire to police vans is not a protest, (they) are thugs and they should be dealt with with the full weight of the law."
Southport riot eyewitness criticises 'outsiders' spreading violence
She said it was "disgusting" that people "decided to break out in violence and it wasn't people in Southport that did that, the people in Southport were trying to hold a peaceful vigil, the collective grief, trauma of what they've been through, they weren't thinking about violence.
"And then today, to see the community coming together to rebuild the wall that had been smashed up, clean up what happened...it's disgusting people were whipping that level of violence up.
"The real concern for me with this is before the facts are known, even before the family and the victims know the facts, people are jumping to conclusions".
Reform party leader and Clacton MP Nigel Farage has been criticised for his response to the initial attack, after he asked whether the "truth is being withheld from us".
LBC callers react to Southport riot
Ms Rayner said: "I've had my issues with Nigel Farage... he must understand you have a level of responsibility, you're a community leader, you're elected to represent your constituency.
She added that MPs have a responsibility "not to stoke up conspiracy theories or what you think might have happened or lean into what you think - actually there's a responsibility to say the police are doing a difficult job, local authorities, all of the services, we want to establish facts as soon as possible and we have a responsibility to hold the community together".
