But Starmer, who has been in office as Labour prime minister for less than a month, declined to get into a direct slanging match with Farage.
“I’m not going to stand here and cast judgment on what others have been saying,” he said when pressed on the Reform UK leader’s comments.
Questioned again, Starmer said only that “anybody who says or does anything that impedes [families of the victims’] ability to get the justice that they deserve, cannot claim to be acting in their best interests.”
Ahead of the first bout of disorder, Farage questioned why the incident in Southport was not being treated as “terror-related” and suggested the “truth” about the identity of the suspect was being “withheld from us.” He has since rejected comparisons with the far-right, and said it is “quite legitimate to ask questions.”
Starmer elsewhere used the press conference to announce that his government is setting up a new police task force to take on rioters who travel across the U.K. to wreak havoc.
Britain, he said, is “a country that will not allow understandable fear to curdle into division and hate in our communities, and that will not permit under any circumstances a breakdown in law and order on our streets.”
