Shameful riots across the UK have been fuelled by far-right activists spreading hate and misinformation on social media while also sucking in opportunistic thugs looking for a fight.
Tommy Robinson, his ally ‘Danny Tommo’, Reclaim party leader Laurence Fox and figures from hate group Patriotic Alternative have been among those pouring fuel on the flames with inflammatory posts on X, Telegram, Facebook and TikTok.
Far-right campaigners have been prominent on the ground at anti-immigration rallies, while several photos show men sporting Neo-Nazi tattoos. But their numbers have been swelled by thugs eager to fight counter-protesters and police, or take advantage of the chaos to loot shops.
Rallies that followed last week’s mass stabbing in Southport have also drawn in local people concerned about the impact of immigration alongside teenagers who have recently broken up from school for the summer holidays.
Experts have noted the disorganised nature of the rallies, with many originating from anonymous accounts on Telegram and TikTok that are then amplified by the likes of Robinson, 41, who has nearly a million followers on X.
On Saturday at 3.50pm, he posted a video of a confrontation in Stoke and claimed two protesters had been stabbed ‘by Muslims’. The post was viewed two million times on X.
Two hours later, Staffordshire Police confirmed the information was false. Those injured were hit by something thrown by their own side.
Prosecutors could use hate crime laws or legislation outlawing incitement to target social media users using the likes of X, TikTok and Telegram to whip up violence.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, has vowed action against online hatemongers – saying ‘it is a crime’ to ‘whip up hate online’.
In England and Wales, it is an offence to ‘stir up hatred’ on the grounds of race or religion, and this legislation has previously been used against those accused of racist tweets.
Meanwhile, people using social media to urge people to riot could also fall foul of legislation preventing the incitement of crimes.
Following the 2011 riots, two men were jailed after using Facebook to encourage violence.
The pair pleaded guilty under sections 44 and 46 of the Serious Crime Act to intentionally encouraging another to assist the commission of an indictable offence.
At 10.23pm that night, Robinson then posted a picture of an unknown man with the caption: ‘Alleged Muslim stabbed at least three women in Stirling… They always target women. Will Kier [sic] Starmer talk about this.’
Police Scotland said that a man had been arrested after a woman was stabbed in the city on Saturday. But the force said the suspect was white and local to the area.
Robinson was due to appear in court over alleged contempt proceedings last Monday but fled the UK the day before and is now subject to a High Court arrest warrant – which could be carried out in October.
He has since been staying at a £400-a-night resort outside Ayia Napa where he has shared a string of posts including the message: ‘You were all warned. We have freedom or we have Islam, you can’t have both.’
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, posted more than 100 times on X yesterday, including a rant addressed to ‘the media and politicians’.
He wrote: ‘It’s not on me, it’s on you. This mess is your doing, not mine. Your policy failures gave birth to these tensions, your failure to listen, to lie and label everyone far-right has caused this. Your cowardice to enforce the law equally has caused this.’
Later he posted videos of fights between two groups of protesters, writing: ‘Muslim mobs running through Sheffield city centre just attacking white people at random.’ He later claimed: ‘Their plan is to pin all this violence on me.’
Actor Laurence Fox has also shared a string of false claims. On Friday night, he posted a list of dozens of acts of violence he alleged had been committed by immigrants under the caption: ‘Anyone else had enough?’
Among them was the claim that a ‘woman [was] beaten to death by two Somalis while walking her dog’ – understood to have been a reference to last month’s murder of Anita Rose, 57, in Brantham, Suffolk.
Three people have been arrested in connection with the murder, but Suffolk Police last night confirmed Fox’s tweet was not correct.
Yesterday marked the sixth day of rioting after three young girls were stabbed to death at a holiday club in Southport. The 17-year-old suspect was named as Axel Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff to Christian parents from Rwanda.
However misinformation about the suspect quickly spread online. The Mail revealed last week that a Russian-linked fake news website named Channel3 Now stirred up false claims about the alleged attacker.
These included claims that the suspect was an asylum seeker called Ali Al-Shakati who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was ‘on the MI6 watchlist’.
Also fanning the flames has been the far-right ‘influencer’ Danny Tommo, real name Daniel Thomas, who is often referred to as Tommy Robinson’s right-hand man.
Hours after the Southport stabbing, Tommo shared an inflammatory video on YouTube in which he told followers: ‘Get ready! We are making plans.’
He continued: ‘If this fella has come off a boat, s***. Even if he hasn’t come off a boat, I’m ready to go. We need to be going to the Home Office and we need to be making sure none of them can leave that building. We need to do something very extreme to make them listen to what we are doing.’
Tommo went on to tell his 68,4000 subscribers that they had to ‘mobilise’.
‘What are we going to do? Wait until one of our kids is gone? Wait until our kids are attacked? It has to go now. We have to literally mobilise… Forget work, forget the holidays you have booked, we have to hit the streets and make a huge impact. All around the country. Every city needs to go up. Everywhere.’
Members of Patriotic Alternative – a group which Michael Gove accused of promoting neo-Nazi ideology in the House of Commons earlier this year – have also been whipping up hate on social media.
One of its leaders, Joe Marsh – also known as Joe Butler – reportedly shared an image on Telegram account showing a bloody handprint and calling on his followers to a ‘protest demo’ titled ‘Enough is Enough’.
Meanwhile Matthew Hankinson, who was previously jailed for being a member of neo-Nazi terror group National Action, tweeted from the riots in Southport: ‘Peaceful protest at the anger of the murder of White Children by a foreign import.’
In a further post on X on Thursday, he said there is a ‘strong moral argument’ for killing police officers.
British Movement, a neo-Nazi group, has also spread information about the protest on social media.
A string of Internet provocateurs have been spotted at the riots, including Rikki Doolan – a hardline pastor – and Patriotic Alternative activist David Miles, also known as Jack the Nipper, who travelled from the West Midlands to Southport.
Experts on extremism have said the far right is in a ‘post-organisational’ phase, with organisations like the National Front and English Defence League pushed out by splinter groups and freelance influencers using messaging apps and social media.
One thug in Middlesbrough was seen openly sporting a Nazi tattoo, while photos from Leicester, Manchester and Belfast show men pulling Nazi salutes.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has vowed rioters would ‘regret’ engaging in ‘far-right thuggery’ as he initiated 24-hour magistrates courts to ensure swift justice.
Those appearing at Teesside Magistrates’ Court over rioting in Hartlepool on Wednesday included Steven Mailen, 54, and Ryan Sheers, 28, who run a local mascot hire company that provides entertainment for children’s parties.
Sheers, who was bitten in the leg by a police dog in footage that went viral, wept during the hearing. Both he and Mailen – who have no previous convictions – admitted a single charge of violent disorder.
Six people have been charged over rioting in Sunderland on Friday.
Four men aged 48, 41, 31 and 29 and one woman aged 43 have been charged with violent disorder and a man aged 27 has been charged with one count of violent disorder and one count of burglary.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of violent disorder, bringing the total number of arrests to 14. Another boy, 16, has also been arrested.
Two men have also been charged over disorder in Bristol. Adrian Croft, 45, of Flintshire, and Damien Williams, 39, of Knowle, have been charged with public order offences, while Croft is also accused of possessing cocaine.
Nine men and a 14-year-old boy are set to appear at magistrates’ court in Merseyside over disorder in Liverpool on Saturday. They include a mix of local people and one man from Lincoln.
with a Section 4 public order offence and possession of a Class A drug (cocaine). Meanwhile, Damien Williams, 39, of Stockwood Crescent, Knowle, has been charged with a Section 4 public order offence.
Rioters have burnt two migrant hotels in Rotherham and Tamworth, attacked mosques and randomly assaulted people of Asian appearance.
Police have been called ‘nonces’ – in a reference to anger over the failure to stop Asian grooming gangs in the 1990s and 2000s – and complained of ‘two-tier policing’.
There have also been outbreaks of opportunistic looting, with thugs in Liverpool filmed screaming ‘get the phones! Get the phones!’ as they battered their way into a phone repair and vape shop. A Shoe Zone in Hull was also looted and set alight.
While violent far-right activists have been prominent at the rallies, they have also attracted women and local people angry about the impact of immigration.
‘There’s too many immigrants here,’ an elderly woman protesting outside a mosque in Liverpool told The Times. ‘You can’t get a doctor’s appointment and they’re prioritising foreigners over our own people. It needs to stop. If we went to their country, they’d lock us up.’
Former home secretary Dame Priti Patel said she would not feel safe in some of the areas that have seen violent unrest, adding that the racism on display was no different from that of the 1970s and 1980s.
‘I grew up with people using the P-word against me,’ she told Times Radio.
‘And I think some of the individuals that are now involved in this violence, disorder and racism that we are seeing in parts of the country – that’s no different to the type of racism that I experienced when I was growing up, and I just think that there’s no place for that in our amazing country,’ she added.
The Tory MP said that claims there is ‘two-tier policing’ in Britain, where right-wing protests are dealt with more harshly than left-wing ones, are ‘not correct’.
Sir Keir said he wanted those who ‘feel targeted because of the colour of their skin’ to know ‘this violent mob do not represent our country’.
In his message to rioters, the Prime Minister said: ‘I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder, whether directly or those whipping up this action online and then running away themselves.’
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that social media has put ‘rocket boosters’ under far-right organisations.