Illustration: Xia Qing/GT

Just four weeks after coming into office as Britain's newly-elected prime minister, Keir Starmer could be facing what may well turn out to be one of the greatest domestic challenges of his tenure at Downing Street. 

As I write this, at least 19 towns and cities across Britain have been swept along in a wave of rioting resulting in widespread damage, injuries and arrests. By the time you read it, it may be more. It has caused widespread fear and concern among ethnic and minority communities as the violence, driven by racism, hatred of immigrants and appalling Islamophobia, largely targets them. Mosques have been attacked, black and Asian people abused and assaulted, hotels housing asylum seekers wrecked and set on fire. And it may well get worse before it gets better. 

Riots can often have a whirlpool effect in communities, drawing in discontent which until then has not found an outlet. Immigration, whether controlled or not, is a major issue in Britain today. Whether justified or not, many ordinary people feel anxiety, anger and frustration. For some, while they deplore the violence, they can also empathize with rioters' motivation. 

Rightly or wrongly, people blame immigration for pressures on services, shortages of housing and strains on the critically hard-pressed National Health Service. There are pressures, of course, but these are due to central government's funding cuts driven by the controversial policy of deliberate austerity, which increased poverty, homelessness and unemployment.

Against this backdrop, the public protests - many in areas of pronounced deprivation - can be seen as giving voice to a cohort of the population which until then may have felt voiceless and unheard. That they feel this way is surely the government's fault.

It is ironic that the past week's riots were spawned by a false far right narrative: Agitators spread the lie that the killer of three little girls aged six, seven and nine at a holiday dance class in the town of Southport, in North West England, was an asylum-seeker, or a Muslim immigrant. The killer is in fact a 17-year-old boy born in Britain. By the time authorities began correcting the lie, millions had already seen and believed it, sharing it with others, and the false narrative had already done its damage.

Violence should not be legitimized. But even a Tory police commissioner claimed that "mass uncontrolled immigration" lay behind the upset of the past week, and that the riots should be seen as a form of political protest. 

There seems little doubt that the appalling deaths of the three children were politicized by some people intent on causing violent disruption, promoting a racist agenda. These protestors, and even some politicians, have sought to exploit the tragedy for their own political advantage. And to a degree it has worked: Immigration policy is once again thrust into the spotlight of public discourse. 

However, it would be dishonest to pretend that the rioters' professed concerns did not resonate in any way with some ordinary people whose lives have been made precarious by successive government policies. If UK politicians do not acknowledge this, and take steps to deal with it by addressing people's concerns, then the extremism behind the rioting will further prevail. 

In the immediate short term, the government's response has been to call for a law-and-order crackdown to catch, prosecute and punish the rioters. In the longer term, measures such as investing in depleted public services, building more housing and doing much more to repair the damaged UK infrastructure, might help. 

Politicians have repeatedly failed citizens. First, they have created economic inequality and deprivation in which extremism can thrive. Second, they have done little to counter the shrill voices of extremism which exploited fears and created panic over immigration. It is not a problem confined to Britain, but that does not absolve politicians for failing to address a problem that has been festering for years. 

The author is a journalist and lecturer in Britain. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn