Several countries have issued travel warnings to Britain, urging their nationals to exercise extreme caution in the face of rioting that has shaken the UK for nearly a week. Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates—all majority Muslim nations—and Australia issued warnings to their citizens either planning or already in Britain; this follows violence reportedly by far-right extremists amid riots rocking various parts of the country.
Australia has warned its nationals to “exercise a high degree of caution, while Nigeria explicitly warned that the unrest had taken a dangerous turn.Sir Keir Starmer tried to deflect criticism of his response to the disorder by promising a “standing army” of specialist public duty police officers. He warned rioters that they would be named, shamed, and jailed.Downing Street insisted there were enough free prison cells to “lock up anyone involved” in the violence.
The Prime Minister has come under pressure from Nigel Farage and others to recall Parliament to debate the response to the disorder but said there was currently no need to do so and also appeared to rule out asking the Army for assistance.
More than a dozen towns and cities have been wracked by rioting and thuggery, including London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, and Sunderland, in violence sometimes targeted at mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers.
It followed mistaken speculation on social media about the motive for the knife attack at a dance workshop in Southport, Merseyside, last Monday that took three children’s lives.
After seeing the images of riots everywhere in the world, at least five countries have issued travel warnings to their citizens about the dangers of spending time in the UK. Australia’s government advised its citizens to “exercise a high degree of caution,” adding: “Avoid areas where protests are occurring due to the potential for disruption and violence.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria, ranked by the Global Peace Index as one of the most dangerous countries in the world, warned its nationals that violence has “assumed dangerous proportions” and there is now “an increased risk of violence and disorder occasioned by the recent riots in the UK.”
The Malaysian High Commission, the Indonesian embassy, and the UAE embassy issued alerts to their citizens to avoid protest areas, not to move around in large groups, and to always be on guard.
Similar warnings were issued during the August 2011 riots, triggered by the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan, who was later found by a coroner’s jury to have been lawfully killed by the Metropolitan Police. Sir Keir chaired a Cobra emergency meeting on Monday, saying afterward: “Several actions came out of the meeting.
“One is that we will have a standing army of specialist public duty officers so that we will have enough officers to deal with this where we need them. Two is, we will ramp up criminal justice: hundreds of arrests have already occurred, and some of those people appeared in court this morning.”I have asked for early consideration of the earliest naming and identification of those involved in the process who will feel the full force of the law.”
