I won’t let mindless thugs run riot – crime has consequences and I’m getting tough, vows Keir Starmer
SIR Keir Starmer has insisted he won’t let mindless thugs run riot and warned yobs that “crime has consequences”.
The PM admitted he didn’t know if courts could deal with the influx of far-right thugs – slamming yobs for “gaming the system”.
He said this summer’s carnage was worse than the 2011 riots in London.
In a major speech, Sir Keir said: “Responding to those riots was hard but dealing with the riots this summer was much harder.
“Back in 2011 I didn’t doubt that the courts could do what they needed to do.
“But this time to be honest with you, I genuinely didn’t know.
“Every day of that disorder we had to check the precise number of prison places and where those places were, to make sure we could arrest, charge and prosecute people quickly.
“Those people throwing rocks, torching cars, making threats, they didn’t just know the system was broken.
“They were betting on it, gaming it. They thought ‘they’ll never arrest me, and if they do I won’t be prosecuted’.”
The PM blasted “despicable” thugs for “exploiting grieving families” after three girls were killed at a dance class in Southport.
Sir Keir added: “The people rioting saw the cracks in our society after 14 years of failure.
“That’s what we’ve inherited, not just an economic black hole, but a societal black hole.
“That’s why we have to take action and do things differently. These riots didn’t happen in a vacuum.
“They exposed the state of our country. They revealed a deeply unhealthy society, the cracks in our foundations laid bare.
“Weakened by a decade of division and decline, infected by a spiral of populism that fed off cycles of failure of the last Government.”
In his first key speech as PM, Sir Keir launched a fresh onslaught on Tory sleaze.
He vowed to put himself at the service of workers as he addressed an audience of nurses, teachers, firefighters and small business bosses.
But he warned Brits will be forced to suffer “short term pain” for the “long term good” of the economy.
In the gloom-ridden speech, the PM laid the ground for a “painful” Autumn Budget littered with brutal tax hikes.
Speaking from the sun-soaked No10 Rose Garden, he insisted that “things are worse than we ever imagined”.
Sir Keir said: “There is a Budget coming in October and it is going to be painful.
“We have no other choice given the situation we are in.”