UK PM to meet police over stabbing attack as protesters chant ‘Save our children’

London:

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet senior police leaders on Thursday, his office said, after a second night of clashes between protesters and police sparked by the deaths of three girls in a frenzied knife attack in a dance class.

There were angry scenes in London on Wednesday night as thousands of anti-immigration protesters gathered near Starmer’s Downing Street office and residence chanting “save our children” and “we want our country back”.

The night before, more than 50 police officers were injured in violent clashes in the English seaside town of Southport, where Monday’s stabbings took place.

A 17-year-old was in police custody on suspicion of murder and attempted murder following Monday’s bloody massacre at a “Taylor Swift Yoga and Dance Workshop,” a summer holiday event for children ages 6 to 11 years.

Starmer’s office said he would use Thursday’s meeting with police to “offer them the government’s full support following a number of incidents of extreme violence and public disorder on our streets”.

“While the right to peaceful protest must be protected at all costs, he will make clear that criminals who exploit this right to sow hatred and carry out violent acts will face the full force of the law,” his office added.

The disorder occurred after false information was spread on social media that the suspect was a radical Islamic migrant.

Police are legally restricted in the details they can provide about the alleged teenage attacker, but said the incident was not linked to terrorism and that he was born in Britain, quashing speculation about his origins.

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