August 7, 2024

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Far-Right Riots Fueled by Disinformation Proliferate in the UK After Stabbing Attack

AP Photo/Darren Staples

Widespread far-right protests have erupted across the United Kingdom after a devastating attack last week on a children's dance class in the English town of Southport, located near Liverpool, which resulted in the deaths of three young girls and left eight other children and two adults wounded. The attacker, a 17-year-old boy from Wales named Axel Rudakubana, was charged with three counts of murder and ten counts of attempted murder. Disinformation related to Rudakubana's ethnic and religious background was initially disseminated through social media, falsely claiming that he was an undocumented asylum-seeker, fueling public outrage. Some of the posts suggested that he was a Muslim from Syria (he was born in Britain to Rwandan parents) who had arrived in the UK by boat last year. Given the severity of the disinformation, authorities made the unconventional decision to publicly identify the attacker, despite laws that typically protect the identities of minors under 18.

Since the Southport attack, mobs across the UK have descended on the streets, with rioters in various parts of the country smashing car windshields and house windows, targeting mosques, and setting fire to two hotels that housed asylum seekers. Despite public discrediting of the claim that the attacker was an asylum-seeker, the violence has stubbornly refused to ebb, resulting in over 400 arrests. The director of public prosecutions is now contemplating terrorism charges for some participants, and the government has responded by creating over 500 additional prison spaces.

The Head of public order for Britain’s National Police Chiefs’ Council, B.J. Harrington, said that online disinformation was “a huge driver of this appalling violence.” There were arrests in over a dozen cities throughout the UK, including major cities such as London, Belfast, Manchester, and Liverpool, to name just a few. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the riots “far-right thuggery” which was organized and violent and included targeting Muslim communities while British citizens made Nazi salutes in the street.

Although not all protestors have resorted to violence or hold extremist views, the recent turmoil has reignited concerns about the rise of far-right ideologies in the United Kingdom, as the initial mobilization for these protests began on far-right platforms, with extremist groups urging their followers to take to the streets. British security agencies have observed that the riots are not orchestrated by any single far-right group. Instead, they are propelled by various far-right influencers and local social media accounts amplifying false claims, organizing protests, and overtly calling for violence in some cases. These accounts spread misinformation about the attacker's identity and disseminate details about rally times and locations via messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Some have even circulated a "hit list" of potential targets. This decentralized coordination is characteristic of the far-right movement, which typically lacks a formal structure and is driven by the influence of social media personalities.

The UK government is currently investigating the role of state involvement in the amplification of the disinformation around the Southport attack and the proliferation of far-right, anti-immigrant narratives online. “Channel3 Now”, an outlet that began 11 years ago as a Russian YouTube channel, first published the false claim that the attacker was an undocumented immigrant named Ali Al-Shakati and posted that the suspect was “on the MI6 watch list” and was “known to mental health services.” The outlet has since deleted the post and apologized for “the misleading information” in its article; yet the post had already been viewed by more than two million people by the time it was removed and the rumors had spread rapidly online.

The claim the suspect was an immigrant was then promulgated by well-known far-right influencers, including Tommy Robinson – the de facto leader of the defunct far-right, Islamophobic English Defense League (EDL) – and Andrew Tate – the self-proclaimed “misogynist.” Posts from Robinson and Tate were viewed millions of times online, leading citizens to mobilize and engage in massive demonstrations of civil disobedience, arson, vandalism, assault, and looting. EDL was once notorious for organizing far-right, violent street protests and its anti-Islam, anti-immigration stances. Although the group has now morphed into mainly a diffuse idea spread online, its Islamophobic and xenophobic narratives can still serve to self-radicalize individuals.

Reports have also emerged that disinformation fueling the riots has been amplified and spread by Russian bots, with the government’s adviser on political violence, John Woodcock, warning that “troll factories” in countries such as Russia and Iran could play a role in stoking disorder. Although it is currently unclear whether the origin of the disinformation is due to state-backed interference, as the societal tensions over immigration have been brewing for years in the UK, the ability of bots and troll factories to stoke hateful narratives and extreme actors demonstrates the threat posed by disinformation intensified by hostile actors.

The widespread violence has also undermined the illusion that the United Kingdom has completely diverged from the broader growth of the European far-right — a belief seemingly reinforced by the center-left Labour Party's landslide victory in the July parliamentary elections. However, the far-right populist Reform UK party, led by the controversial figure Nigel Farage, saw unexpected gains in the election, capitalizing on the growing discontent among many British voters over immigration. Moreover, as with the European parliamentary and French elections earlier this summer, immigration was a fixture of the UK elections, and the issue contributed to many voters’ disillusionment with the former ruling Conservative party. Frustrations over the high cost of living, economic stagnation, chronic underfunding, and dysfunction with the National Health Service have fueled disillusionment among voters and led some to use immigration as a scapegoat. Farage has blamed economic and public services issues on the “population explosion” without providing evidence.

The unrest in the UK poses a unique challenge for the new Labour government. Although it has condemned the riots and promised the “full force of the law” on those taking part, the underlying sentiment fueling the violence is unlikely to be tempered quickly, as evidenced by earlier anti-immigrant riots. In a situation almost parallel to this weekend’s events, riots erupted in Dublin in November 2023 after the horrific stabbing of five people, including three children. Rumors that the attacker was an immigrant of Algerian descent quickly spread on social media 30 minutes after the attack before the national police had made any announcements. Anti-immigration protests organized by far-right influencers were followed by a night of looting, attacks on police, and arson. Posts on Telegram calling for mobilization and incitement to violence spread across mainstream channels and fueled the unrest. Both examples not only display the threat of disinformation online that translates into real-world violence but also the fertile ground of anti-immigrant sentiment and general societal frustration ripe for extremist actors to exploit.