Nigel Farage risks fomenting violence and hate by pandering to the mob

The thuggery foisted upon those grieving in Southport is unacceptable, writes Sean O’Grady. People have had enough of fringe right-wing groups – and opportunistic politicians – capitalising on tragedies to further their divisive agenda

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage took the speculation spawned by the conspiracists seriously – ‘I wonder whether the truth is being held from us, I don’t know’ (PA Wire)

Rather than viewing Monday’s horrifying attack in Southport, in which three young girls were killed, as an occasion for mourning, the UK far right viewed it as an opportunity to cause more havoc and hurt, and attempt to further their vile ideology. The English Defence League (EDL) – an Islamophobic pressure group once headed by Tommy Robinson – took to the streets in a display of violence and arson, injuring 53 police officers in the process.

Footage of the incident has surfaced on Twitter, including a particularly memorable clip of one rioter being accidentally hit a couple of times – once in the head and once where it really, really hurts – by two bricks seemingly launched by one of his fellow protesters. As cathartic or amusing as we might find the video, it is a reminder of the disorganisation and chaos that accompanies such groups wherever they go.

This isn’t the first time a far-right protest has turned violent. Just last year 145 people were arrested following a clash with police at the Cenotaph on Armistice day, with many of those arrested belonging to far-right groups, including the EDL. The pattern we see whenever these groups decide to congregate is clear and immensely disturbing – not least because the harm visited on this grieving community seems to have been spurred on by a toxic brew of lies and misinformation.

All we know about the perpetrator of the Southport attack – and all we need to know at this stage in a serious criminal investigation – is that he was 17, born in Cardiff but moved to near Southport when he was younger. We do not know his religion, or his politics, or the state of his mental health. All of that will eventually come out through proper orderly process in court.

None of that, though, has prevented those with an active interest in promoting hate and mob rule to speculate – and worse – about what has happened. Digital researchers such as Marc Owen Jones, Rod Dacombe and the anti-fascist Searchlight organisation have plotted a plausible path for the lies and distortions originating in far-right conspiracy social media accounts, often masquerading as conventional news sites.

Quite early on a fictitious Arab/Muslim-sounding name was made up for the attacker. He was said to have come over on a boat as an “illegal” migrant from Syria, and was on an MI5 watch list. A picture was painted of an Islamist terrorist, induced by our foolishly impartial liberal elite.

None of which is factual. It is, as the researchers remind us, all too reminiscent of the knife attacks in Sydney, which were immediately blamed on a Muslim when it was actually a homeless non-Muslim man named Joel Cauchi. Whatever else, the Southport attacker (who cannot be named for legal reasons) is not an immigrant.

Such claims about Southport were then amplified by some well-known hard-right figures, and then repeated and, necessarily, hinted at and denied in the mainstream media, which adds to their circulation. According to Jones, there were at least 27 million impressions for posts stating or speculating that the attacker was a Muslim, migrant, refugee or foreigner.

There were people also denouncing these speculations but, of course, this adds to the tumult, as so many of those enthralled by the propaganda are trained to believe that whatever normal politicians and journalists report is always the opposite of the truth. Then the EDL gets involved, the riots start, and Southport suffers a second trauma.

People who should know better have been engaged in exploiting the tumult that the lies have created. The most obvious example is Nigel Farage, hovering as ever between his blazered respectability as an MP and leader of a political party, and his instinct for stirring up trouble. In two appearances, on X and his TV show on GB News, he constructed loaded scenarios and took the speculation spawned by the conspiracists seriously – “I wonder whether the truth is being held from us, I don’t know.”

By sticking a question mark at the end of his statements it looks like he thinks he has an alibi for when things turn out to be different, or when people get hurt – “only asking questions” being the standard sly tactic of the conspiracist. The likes of Farage don’t seem to mind a bit of mob rule when it broadly supports their worldview.

If it was a church or a synagogue that had been surrounded by a vicious crowd, we’d never hear the end of Reform MPs calling for the home secretary to resign. At the moment, they’ve said nothing to condemn the violence. One wonders what they feel when they hear the yobs chanting, “We want our country back”.

The enemies of our society, the people who hate Britain, the ones who wish to destroy our democracy are not hiding in mosques plotting, but are spouting their vile prejudices and lies on social media, in the TV studios of the hard-right anti-news stations and, yes, now in the House of Commons, fomenting violence and hate.

It is they, not “mass immigration”, who are wilfully destroying the peace of multicultural communities. It is the far right and their useful idiot supporters in the Conservative Party, abetted by the social media giants, who are the enemy within. Our mainstream political leaders have for far too long ignored them, perhaps because refuting their unhinged racism is just a bit too tiresome, or they don’t wish to lend them credibility.

Well, we’ve seen in Southport what happens when the arguments about multiculturalism and migration go unanswered, and the lies spiral into violence. Never mind the self-styled “patriots” who burn police vans, terrorise neighbourhoods and make the lives of Muslim people a misery – the great silent majority of us who love our country want an end to this racist thuggery. We’ve had enough.