To be entirely honest there are several ways to resolve this.
In general I do not think the situation comes down to any one cause, to be honest the shooting a lot of people think was a Catalyst apparently has very little to do with it, I've read more than a few things about it, and how that seems to have been used mostly by observers and claimed as a rallying point after the fact by people wanting to look to try and justify their actions. The fact that by most accounts it was a good shoot (and I say "most" because there are people claiming things like how he was on the ground in handcuffs, but that mostly seems to be anti-police rhetoric and wasn't tossed out until way after the innocents and even the original non-violent protest over it didn't seem to be claiming that).
In the end people need to be made to fear the repercussions of their actions, as I've said in many riots in the past, humane solutions to rioters just encourage people to riot because they figure it's all possible gains, and no real risk. A simple "looters and vandals will be shot in sight without warning" policy pretty much deals with the issue. Even if we saw a massive massacre of tens or hundreds of thousands of people at the hands of police and military MORE people in future generations would benefit from the fear and precedent set. In reality though I doubt any body count would go beyond more than a few dozen (given hoe spread out things are) once people get wind of the simple fact that guys are getting gunned down by the police they are going to go home and not want to risk being shot. Overall truncheons, hoses, and/or saying "stop, or I'll say stop again" doesn't work in cases like this.
The OTHER solution is of course for the goverment to consider the riots a revolution and effectively cede authority. This is difficult to do as there really isn't a movement or a leader. Still, given the social concerns which are fueling this even if they aren't the cause, surrender might be a valid option if it's believed this is going to go further and not end. Have all the politicians in elected positions simply step down en-masse and hold new elections, consider it a massive impeachment/lack of faith vote. Of course I don't see this happening because the guys in power want to remain in power, and probably figure they would rather see the country go down (and grab as much wealth as they can on their way to elsewhere) than face that.
Overall though I think the former solution is a bit more likely, because as I said there really isn't a unified purpose here. Bullets will probably work, but I don't see the makings og a new social order here. Besides it seems like the damage being done is mostly to the civil infrastructure, I've seen very little about attacks on goverment buildings. If we started seeing people driving industrial machinery through the civic infrastructure, or lynching judges and such there might be more grounds to say this is a socially motivated uprising.... but really, we're not seeing that kind of focus.
At the same time though I'll also say that after years of hearing how "Chavs" are the lowest form of life on the planet from people in the UK, it's always possible that this is them pushing back. I can only speak from what I've been hearing, I really don't know that much about that paticular subculture or how it relates to the rest of the UK. How good that information is, is debatable.
