[Source: Reuters]

British police remained on alert on Thursday after a heavy security presence, rapid arrests and displays of unity by people across Britain on Wednesday prevented a repeat of widespread rioting involving racist attacks targeting Muslims and migrants.

After police deployed in force and thousands of anti-racism protesters took to the streets on Wednesday evening, threats of widespread gatherings by far-right anti-immigration groups did not materialise.

But the government said it was still cautious after days of riots triggered by false online posts wrongly identifying the suspected killer of three young girls in a July 29 knife attack in Southport, northwest England, as an Islamist migrant.

Police said a further potential 20 gatherings and three counter-gatherings were planned for Thursday.

More than 480 people have been arrested across the country so far, with nearly 150 charged. Dozens have already been sentenced with cases fast-tracked through the justice system.

Britain’s most senior police officer, London Commissioner Mark Rowley, said many of those arrested had criminal backgrounds.

For Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, it is the first major test of his premiership since winning a July 4 election in which the previous Conservative government highlighted immigration as a major issue.

Rowley dismissed suggestions the riots were political.

Several thousand people from anti-racism groups gathered in Walthamstow, north London, on Wednesday following threats to an immigration advice centre there. Others protected mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers that were among other targets.

Rowley hailed a “successful” night that had gone “very peacefully” apart from a few criminal incidents.

Footage circulated on X showed a councillor from Starmer’s Labour Party at the Walthamstow gathering calling for people to cut the throats of “disgusting Nazi fascists.”

London police said a man in his 50s had been arrested on suspicion of offences including encouraging murder. Labour said the behaviour was “completely unacceptable” and the man, a councillor in Dartford, Kent, had been suspended from the party.