ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: Keir Starmer and his team will wake up this morning with genuine hope that the past week’s riots are now beginning to fade. Dozens of planned demonstrations failed to materialize last night, after predictions of mayhem across the nation, and instead thousands of counter-protesters stood up to cowed far-right thugs. With a couple days of relative calm and convictions mounting, it does feel like the tide may just be turning.
A nerve-filled day: The nation was braced for further civil unrest throughout chinese overseas australia database Wednesday, with many businesses boarding up their shopfronts in anticipation of another wave of rioting. Six thousand riot police were mobilized to deal with 30+ protests planned on platforms like Telegram, where far-right thugs spoke about attacking immigration lawyers and refugee centers. However, the night passed without the type of rioting, looting or attacks on police officers the nation has witnessed over the past week.
Standing up to extremism: Instead, today’s front pages lead on pictures of 5,000 anti-racist counter-protesters in the London neighborhood of Walthamstow, where there were fears of violent flare-ups. Counter-protesters also flooded the streets in Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Liverpool, Brighton and Oxford. Thousands gathered at these sites to protect community law firms and migrant centers that were thought to be at risk of attack.
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Flare-ups: In most cases there were no signs of far-right protesters while in some areas, like Southampton and Brighton, they were vastly outnumbered by counter-protesters. The Mail’s splash quoted counter-protesters in Brighton chanting “Nazi scum, off our streets” to a handful of men who showed up, while the Times’ splash reported on people in Birmingham holding banners that read “oppose Tommy Robinson.” There were still reports of a small number of arrests in places like Southampton, Middlesbrough and Blackpool, where flag-draped protesters clashed with police.
Paper round: There’s a near clean sweep of papers splashing this morning on the protests and counter-protests . The Times, Mail, Express, Mirror, Telegraph, Sun, i and Guardian all go big on Wednesday night’s events.
The boys in blue: Home Secretary Yvette Cooper posted on X a “thank you to all the police officers working tonight to protect and support local communities.” Home Office Minister Diana Johnson will be on the morning broadcast round for the government today, which will include BBC Breakfast at 7.30 a.m. and Today at 8.10 a.m. The better angels of our nature