Prisons prepare to house SIX HUNDRED rioters as Starmer vows tough crackdown

Prison administrators are also considering transferring some current inmates out of the areas where the riots have broken out, in order to create space for newly charged rioters.

Justice Minister Heidi Alexander added that courts are not currently sitting out of hours but that option is available in some areas depending on requests - during the 2011 London riots, court judges were requested to work overnight.

However, both the Magistrates' Association and the Criminal Bar Association have stated that they would rather this was not the case, pointing to a criminal justice system already at "maximum capacity".

Both HMP Stocken and HMP Cookham Wood were already being prepared to increase their intakes, though these plans have been accelerated in light of recent violence across the UK.

Speaking to the BBC, Alexander said: "We will make sure that anyone who is given a custodial sentence as a result of the riots and disorder, there will be a prison place waiting for them.

"What we have been able to do in the last week since the problems have arisen is that we have been able to bring forward some additional prison places that we had been due to bring on stream later in the month. There are 567 additional prison places."

Following the fatal stabbings of three young girls in Southport last week, violent unrest has broken out across the UK led by the far-right which has seen more than 420 people arrested.

Yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer held an emergency Cobra meeting where ministers, civil servants, the police, intelligence officers, and others came together to discuss the recent spate of violence.

Starmer claimed incidents witnessed in the previous week were not protest and instead amounted to violence, adding: "This is not protest - it is pure violence, and we will not tolerate attacks on mosques or our Muslim communities."

Speaking about what was discussed during the meeting, he said: "There were a number of actions that came out of the meeting. The first is we will have a standing army of specialist officers, public duty officers, so we will have enough to deal with this where we need them.

"The second is we will ramp up criminal justice. There have already been hundreds of arrests. Some of them have appeared in court this morning.

"I've asked for the early consideration of the earliest naming and identification of those involved in the process, who will feel the full force of the law."

Addressing the use of a "standing army", Starmer added: "In relation to the police, I am absolutely clear that we will have the officers we need, where we need them to deal with this disorder.

"That is why the 'standing army has been set up, specialist officers, ready to be deployed to support communities."

Over the weekend, Elon Musk said that "civil war is inevitable" – a remark that was whole-heartedly rejected by the Prime Minister’s official spokesman, who said there was "no justification" for it.

The row continued when the X owner responded to a post of Starmer's where he discussed the recent spate of violence on Britain's streets.

Starmer shared a video of him speaking about the riots, with the caption: "This is not protest, it is pure violence. We will have a standing army of public duty officers. We will ramp up criminal justice.

"We will apply criminal law online as well as offline. We will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities."

Musk commented on the post saying: "Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?"

After the murder of the three young girls, violent protests broke out by vexed Britons who voiced their frustrations at immigration, following false claims that the suspect was an asylum seeker who arrived in the UK by boat.