The Conservatives want the Government to succeed in stopping civil unrest, Shadow Policing Minister Matt Vickers MP has said.
He told GB News: “You know what? We need the Government to succeed. In opposition, it’s not about just throwing things at them and telling them they’re wrong and everything. We actually need them to succeed.
“We need them to draw this to a close as quickly as possible. I think already people have expressed concerns about the fact that it took a week for Keir Starmer to get that Cobra meeting together, Cobra meetings being very important.
“It brings the agencies together. It allows them to look at where that mutual aid might go and where it might be able to take police from one force to another…
“I’m glad that there’s been 400 arrests. I’m glad that the courts are sitting around the clock and dealing with these people as quickly as possible, because the only way we’re going to draw it to close is if there is real tough justice as quickly as possible.
“People see the sanctions that others are facing and therefore don’t go out and do these vile, disgusting things.”
Asked if the Tories are to blame for leaving the criminal justice system in a mess, he said: “I completely disagree with that characterisation. Actually, we put more police on the streets, so now more police on the streets than ever before.
“When it comes to incidents like this. Actually, we change the law, whether that be with the police, court, with a police crime sentencing in courts, Bill where we put in tougher sanctions for some of the people who are involved in this, some of those people who assault our emergency service workers, Labour voted down.
“They opposed those powers for the police, or whether it be in that Public Order Bill, where we gave the police greater powers to take action on these people, to commit to undertake stop and search and hold these people to account.
“I think those things were the right things to do. I think it was right that we moved it forward. I think now the police are benefiting from having those powers, and long may it continue.”
He added: “You would never see people being arrested on the scale they are going to be in the next few days and weeks. That, of course, is going to apply pressure to the court system, courts are going to apply pressure on prison places. But actually, the last government had the biggest prison building program since the Victorian era.
“There were more prison places being built than there had been in decades. Actually, that’s what we need to do. We now need to carry on with that, not loosen up on the sanctions for these things, toughen upon them, see people bear the consequences and get on with it.”
On civil unrest being potentially treated as terrorism, he said: “I don’t think it’s for politicians to decide such things. I think the right people to decide that is the CPS with all of the details in front of them.
“Parliament has created the law. It’s created the rules. It’s created the legislation. When those people left their homes going to do what they were going to do and made the decision to do it, they can have a look at the law. They can see what the consequences are going to be.
“And that’s right, we don’t change the law retrospectively. It’s for the CPS to look at what’s happened, look at all the facts and make sure those people feel the full force of the law and the consequences for what they have done.”
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