Inside the UK riots: Right-wing groups fueled by misinformation
Reporters investigating the dissemination of information that sparked the riots on Tuesday have tracked them to a number of far-right groups active on social media
Right-wing groups spouting misinformation have been blamed for the riots that rocked the UK on Tuesday as Southport residents grieved the deaths of Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar.
Protesters who turned up to the seaside town in Merseyside and attended gatherings that descended into chaos in other areas of the country including London, Manchester and Hartlepool this week, are officially believed to have come from far-right groups.
On Friday evening rioters battled police in the streets of Sunderland city centre following a planned protest linked to the Southport knife attack. Hundreds of people gathered in Keel Square, many of them draped in England flags, and members of the crowd chanted in support of Tommy Robinson, while others shouted insults about Islam.
Some protesters were involved in violence, setting an overturned car on fire, while others targeted a mosque. Northumbria Police said in a post on X that its officers had been “subjected to serious violence”, and added that three officers were taken to hospital. Eight people have so far been arrested for a range of offences, including violent disorder and burglary, the force added.
The troubling scenes in towns and cities, officials have said, resulted from massive online misinformation campaigns that involved both these groups and individuals. Merseyside Police and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have placed the blame on the EDL, who they believed provoked the riots and took in other individuals who may not have shared their aims. Fact-checkers have found the effort was likely a collaboration of agitators.
Officials are starting to identify several groups as having been involved in the riots ( Image: PA)
The EDL (English Defence League)
Thugs supporting the EDL have received the bulk of the blame from UK authorities since ugly scenes unfolded in Southport on Tuesday, with Merseyside Police saying the group hurled items like bricks at a local mosque from around 7.45pm. The EDL is an Islamophobic group that was founded in 2009 by former BNP member Tommy Robinson - real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (who says he is no longer a member).
The group has incited violence against Muslims over the last decade and a half, and, despite being largely on the decline, is still associated with massive demonstrations. EDL splinter groups that formed during that decline have become more explicitly white supremacist in nature, and have associated with the fascist neo-Nazi group the National Front, another organisation said to have been involved in peddling misinformation.
The organisation has ceased to exist in any formal capacity, but posts circulating online organising protests on July 30 are believed to have originated from accounts held by EDL sympathisers. They are namely followers and associates of Yaxley-Lennon, who left after claiming his former group had become "too extreme" in 2011.
The National Front
While the EDL has taken a central role in coverage of the chaos, it is not the only group to have reportedly been involved with the riots. The BBC ’s fact-checking service, BBC Verify, has also found posts coming from the National Front, a fascist party that was founded by former British Union of Fascists (BUF) member AK Chesterton.
Users associated with the group called for a protest on St Luke’s Street in Southport, where the mosque that was targeted on Tuesday is based. Online graphics shared via several accounts called for people to attend the "Enough is Enough" protests, and to attend the St Luke’s gathering with their faces covered.
These accounts were also believed to have spread false rumours claiming the Southport attacker was of Muslim origin and shared a false name. Police investigators quickly shut down the rumours and a judge has since named Axel Rudakubana, from Banks in Lancashire, as the teen charged with the murders of the three girls in the town. But the false information continued to whip up extremist fringe groups, some of which were smaller and primarily active on social media.
Social media groups
Over the last few days, journalists have discovered several other groups not obviously affiliated with large far-right organisations that disseminated misinformation online. Sky News identified one account on X, European Invasion, which falsely claimed the suspect was a "Muslim immigrant". The tweet claiming as such earned nearly four million impressions.
Reporters have tracked online disinformation to several accounts ( Image: TikTok)
The BBC found that followers of another smaller fascist group, Patriotic Alternative, which has organised a number of anti-immigrant protests, also spread the claims online. Sky News’ data and forensics team found that TikTok also played a part, with a post from one user who possessed just 144 followers having been reshared by someone with 90,000 X followers, eventually earning the video 485,000 views.
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
