Robert Buckland condemns ‘mindless violence’ in Leeds after large scale riots: ‘NO excuse!’

Former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland has condemned the “mindless violence” in Leeds after the Harehills area was rocked by riots.

The violence was sparked by a disturbance involving social services and children, and resulted in large scale fires, overturned police cars and destruction on the streets.

Protesters then continued their demonstrations for a second night in a row as hundreds of people demanded the children who were taken by police are returned.

Reacting to the violence on GB News, Buckland said where police are normally expected to “be as resilient as possible to deal with sudden escalations”, these demonstrations got “out of control without warning”.

Buckland explained: “Having read through all the reports, it does seem to have arisen from a particular case. But there’s no excuse for this mindless violence.

“Most of us in this country are law abiding citizens, we play by the rules, and I think we’re right to get increasingly fed up when we see people who sometimes get away with it, or behave in a way that there doesn’t seem to be any redress for that.”

Discussing the handling of the incident by West Yorkshire Police, Buckland warned that incidents of this nature are something the police “need to crack down on”, despite fewer resources.

Buckland said: “I think it’s right to note that overall violent crime in our country has fallen, and that’s a welcome thing.

“However, there are flash points, and it does seem to me that, you know, in this modern era, we’re facing new threats that we’ve got to make sure the police are ready to scale up in response to.”

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When pressed by host Camilla Tominey on whether former Prime Minister Theresa May was “wrong” to cut police numbers, Buckland admitted that it would be “easy to sit here with hindsight and say it was wrong”.

The former Justice Secretary added: “We lost numbers in police, and we lost numbers of prison officers as well. That was a big problem.

“Then from the middle of the decade, certainly when Boris Johnson came in, we started to scale it back up. And now we are at levels where we are.

“Do I think it was a mistake? I could say yes, it was something that perhaps we could have done differently. But let’s not forget what we were facing back in 2010.”

Turning the discussion to the future of the Conservative Party, Buckland was pressed by Camilla on who he believes should replace Rishi Sunak.

When asked if party favourite Tom Tugendhat should take the helm, Buckland responded: “‘I’m not supporting anybody, I’m just a member now. I think everybody should just calm down and remember, actually playing this long is right.

“I think taking it longer, involving the membership in meaningful debate is absolutely the right way to go. We want more members to join the party, we want the conference to be interesting. That’s the way to do it.”