The UK government said on Tuesday that 6,000 specialist police officers were ready to deal with far-right rioting that broke out following the murder of three children, triggering a week of violence.
On Monday, six people were arrested and several police officers injured when they were attacked by rioters hurling bricks and fireworks in Plymouth, southern England.
Officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, were attacked as rioters attempted to set fire to a shop owned by a foreign national.
Police said a man in his 30s was seriously assaulted during the disorder and that they are treating the incident as a racially motivated hate crime.
Meanwhile, a group of men who gathered in Birmingham, central England, to counter a rumoured far-right demonstration, forced a Sky News reporter off air shouting: “Free Palestine”. She was then followed by a man in a balaclava holding a knife.
Another reporter said he was chased by members of the group “with what looked like a weapon”, while police said there had also been incidents of criminal damage to a pub and a car.
The unrest broke out last Tuesday after three children were killed in a stabbing spree at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England.
Riots have since flared up in several cities and towns, leading to hundreds of arrests.
Justice Minister Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday that the government had freed up an extra 500 prison places and drafted in 6,000 specialist police officers to deal with the ongoing violence.
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“We will make sure that anyone who is given a custodial sentence as a result of the riots and disorder will have a prison waiting for them,” she said.
Mobs threw bricks and flares, attacked police, burned and looted shops, smashed the windows of cars and homes, and targeted at least two hotels housing asylum seekers in a number of cities at the weekend.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday convened an emergency meeting of ministers and police chiefs to discuss the unrest.
The government will “ramp up criminal justice” to ensure that “sanctions are swift”, Starmer told the media after Monday’s meeting.
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