Riots test the new British prime minister in his first month in the job

LONDON (AP) — Just a month into the job, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sounds more like the prosecutor he used to be than the leader of a powerful nation as he tries to quell riots that have swept the country in the past week.

The unfolding crisis presents his first major test since taking power on July 5.

Starmer has blamed far-right instigators for circulating rumors and organizing protests that have targeted mosques, singled out minority communities and featured Nazi salutes, racist rhetoric and attacks that have wounded more than 100 police officers.

Misinformation began circulating on social media last week about the teen charged with fatally stabbing three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class and wounding 10 others on July 29. The suspect was incorrectly identified as a Muslim asylum seeker, spiking racial and ethnic tensions that led to violent unrest.

“I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder whether directly or those whipping up this action online, and then running away themselves,” Starmer said Sunday after a weekend of violence that included a mob storming and setting fire to a hotel housing migrants. “This is not protest. It is organized, violent thuggery."

The unrest has quickly overshadowed plans Starmer rolled out when he came to power last month after his Labour Party swept Conservatives out of office in a landslide.

The new government wanted to focus on getting a sluggish economy moving and fixing public services, such as Britain's revered national health care system, that have been hobbled by deep cuts following the 2008 financial crisis, said Patrick Diamond, a public policy professor at Queen Mary University of London.

“It doesn’t ideally want to be dealing with these kind of identity conflicts,” Diamond said. "I think the protests, the riots are undoubtedly uncomfortable. Governments have plans when they come to office but they often get blown off course and this is another demonstration of that.”

Diamond, who was a policy adviser to the previous two Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, likened it to the crisis Brown faced when he found his agenda swamped by a flooding crisis when he took office in 2007.

Starmer, who was chief prosecutor for England and Wales during the last major outbreak of riots in 2011, has responded with a message of reassurance that communities will be kept safe and perpetrators will be harshly punished.

He has also announced plans to create a “standing army” of specialist police to deal with rioting and improve communication and cooperation between law enforcement agencies as mobs of protesters are believed to be traveling to different towns to stir up trouble.

One of the political issues facing Starmer is whether he's seen to be in control of events and is using the whole government in response, effectively providing public services and dealing with issues of community cohesion, Diamond said.

“It’s an important early test of the ministers,” Diamond said. “Are they in control of the crisis or is the crisis in control of them?"

So far, Starmer’s main political foes have been united in condemning the violence and there hasn't been much criticism of his response.

James Cleverly, the former Conservative home secretary, has said the government should have been quicker in its response to the riots. He has also questioned the purpose and need for the so-called army of police Starmer has called for.

Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party, which only has five seats in Parliament despite winning 14% of the vote, has been widely criticized for making the divisive claim that rioters are subject to “two-tier policing” and are treated more harshly than others, such as Black Lives Matter protesters.

A large fiscal shortfall could complicate efforts to respond to the crisis as Starmer’s government pledges to pay police overtime, potentially hold night and weekend court sessions to deal with an influx of cases from the mayhem and make space in an already overcrowded prison system for more than 500 additional inmates.

On the day of the stabbings in the northeast seaside town of Southport, Treasury Secretary Rachel Reeves had announced what she said was a newly discovered 22-billion-pound ($28 billion) “black hole” in public finances left by the previous administration.

“The dire state of the criminal justice system that the new Labour government has inherited from the Conservatives makes this difficult situation especially challenging in terms of a lack of available prison spaces, a really severe backlog in the courts that limits how cases can be processed,” said Cassia Rowland, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government think tank. “All of these things will affect the ability of the police to respond to unrest and disorder, and maintain law and order in the streets.”

More than 400 people have been arrested over violence in more than two dozen towns and cities and about 100 have been charged. Few have been released on bail, as some judges have said they don’t want to run the risk of a defendant being released and rejoining the fray.

With cases being fast-tracked for swift justice, which is how Starmer responded in 2011, some of those who pleaded guilty at their initial appearance have already been sentenced.

A man who punched a police officer in the face outside a Southport mosque the day after the stabbing was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison. Two others in the mob got prison terms of at least 20 months.

Before the unrest began July 30, the government had announced plans to free inmates before their release date to make room in crowded prisons from next month. They may have to do that even sooner now than planned, Rowland said.

While an overstretched criminal justice system has the ability to handle a surge of cases in the short term, Rowland said urgent action is needed to prevent a breakdown in the future.

“If people are, say, going out and looting or committing very serious criminal damage and arson, getting arrested and then getting released because there’s nowhere to put them, that sends a pretty bad message about the ability of the police and the wider system to maintain law and order,” she said.

The initial problem of stopping the violence will eventually give way to other political realities behind the disorder — in particular, how to deal with a migration crisis Europe faces as people desperate to escape flood, famine, war and poverty risk their lives on perilous sea crossings.

Far-right and populist rhetoric has been focused on preventing immigration, with protesters chanting “stop the boats,” the slogan former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak used in his vow to stem the tide of small, unstable craft ferrying migrants across the English Channel.

“This is an outpouring of violence targeted at immigrants,” said Anand Menon, director of the U.K. in a Changing Europe academic think tank. “It plays into the fact that there is a section of the population that is incredibly concerned about immigration. So I think actually the real challenge for Labour is going to come ... around its ability and plans to deal with the broader debates about immigration.”

Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, centre, arrives at Downing Street, where Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is chairing a meeting of the Government's emergency Cobra committee following ongoing unrest across parts of the country, in London, Monday Aug. 5, 2024. (Aaron Chown/PA via AP)

FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington, March 9, 2020. The British government on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, has called on Musk to act responsibly after one of the world’s richest men used his social media platform to unleash a barrage of posts that risked inflaming the violent unrest gripping the country. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Windows are boarded up ahead of an anti-immigration protest in Northampton, England, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (Joe Giddens/PA via AP)

Members of the public form bubbles outside the Town Hall during a vigil to remember the victims of the stabbing attack last Monday in Southport, England, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. Violence and unrest erupted in cities and towns across Britain, ostensibly in protest of last week's stabbing. (AP Photo/Darren Staples)

Police on patrol ahead of an anti-immigration protest in North Finchley, London, England, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

FILE - Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Ministers' Questions session in parliament in London, July 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — It's noisy, smelly, shy — and New Zealand’s bird of the year.

The hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin, won the country’s fiercely fought avian election on Monday, offering hope to supporters of the endangered bird that recognition from its victory might prompt a revival of the species.

It followed a campaign for the annual Bird of the Year vote that was without the foreign interference scandals and cheating controversies of past polls. Instead, campaigners in the long-running contest sought votes in the usual ways — launching meme wars, seeking celebrity endorsements and even getting tattoos to prove their loyalty.

More than 50,000 people voted in the poll, 300,000 fewer than last year, when British late night host John Oliver drove a humorous campaign for the pūteketeke -- a “deeply weird bird” which eats and vomits its own feathers – securing a landslide win.

This year, the number of votes cast represented 1% of the population of New Zealand — a country where nature is never far away and where a love of native birds is instilled in citizens from childhood.

“Birds are our heart and soul,” said Emma Rawson, who campaigned for the fourth-placed ruru, a small brown owl with a melancholic call. New Zealand's only native mammals are bats and marine species, putting the spotlight on its birds, which are beloved — and often rare.

This year's victor, the hoiho — its name means “noise shouter” in the Māori language — is a shy bird thought to be the world's rarest penguin. Only found on New Zealand's South and Chatham islands — and on subantarctic islands south of the country — numbers have dropped perilously by 78% in the past 15 years.

“This spotlight couldn’t have come at a better time. This iconic penguin is disappearing from mainland Aotearoa before our eyes,” Nicola Toki, chief executive of Forest & Bird — the organization that runs the poll — said in a press release, using the Māori name for New Zealand. Despite intensive conservation efforts on land, she said, the birds drown in nets and sea and can't find enough food.

“The campaign has raised awareness, but what we really hope is that it brings tangible support,” said Charlie Buchan, campaign manager for the hoiho. But while the bird is struggling, it attracted a star billing in the poll: celebrity endorsements flew in from English zoologist Jane Goodall, host of the Amazing Race Phil Keoghan, and two former New Zealand prime ministers.

Aspiring bird campaign managers — this year ranging from power companies to high school students — submit applications to Forest & Bird for the posts. The hoiho bid was run by a collective of wildlife groups, a museum, a brewery and a rugby team in the city of Dunedin, where the bird is found on mainland New Zealand, making it the highest-powered campaign of the 2024 vote.

“I do feel like we were the scrappy underdog,” said Emily Bull, a spokesperson for the runner-up campaign, for the karure — a small, “goth” black robin only found on New Zealand’s Chatham Island.

The karure's bid was directed by the students’ association at Victoria University of Wellington, prompting a fierce skirmish on the college campus when the student magazine staged an opposing campaign for the kororā, or little blue penguin.

The rivalry provoked a meme war and students in bird costumes. Several people got tattoos. When the magazine’s campaign secured endorsements of the city council and local zoo, Bull despaired for the black robin's bid.

But the karure — which has performed a real-life comeback since the 1980s, with conservation efforts increasing the species from five birds to 250 — took second place overall.

This weekend as Rawson wrapped up her campaign for the ruru, she took her efforts directly to the people, courting votes at a local dog park. The veteran campaign manager who has directed the bids for other birds in past years was rewarded by the ruru placing fourth in the poll, her best ever result.

“I have not been in human political campaigning before,” said Rawson, who is drawn to the competition because of the funds and awareness it generates. The campaign struck a more sedate tone this year, she added.

“There’s been no international interference, even though that was actually a lot of fun,” she said, referring to Oliver’s high-profile campaign.

It was not the only controversy the election has seen. While anyone in the world can vote, Forest & Bird now requires electors to verify their ballots after foreign interference plagued the contest before. In 2018, Australian pranksters cast hundreds of fraudulent votes in favor of the shag.

The following year, Forest & Bird was forced to clarify that a flurry of votes from Russia appeared to be from legitimate bird-lovers.

While campaigns are fiercely competitive, managers described tactics more akin to pro wrestling — in which fights are scripted — than divisive political contests.

“Sometimes people want to make posts that are kind of like beefy with you and they’ll always message you and be like, hey, is it okay if I post this?” Bull said. “There is a really sweet community. It's really wholesome.”

This story corrects percentage to 1% instead of 10%.

A karure, or Chatham Islands black robin pictured on Chatham Island in Sept. 2016 is runner-up to a hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin in the New Zealand Bird of the Year competition, announced Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (Oscar Thomas via AP)

A man rides past a mural celebrating John Oliver's New Zealand's 2023 Bird of the Year campaign in Wellington, New Zealand, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Charlotte GrahamMcLay)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)

A hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin pictured on April 2, 2023, has won New Zealand's annual Bird of the Year vote, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, after a fierce contest absent the foreign interference and controversies that have upset the country's avian elections before. (Hayden Parsons via AP)