Why Is It So Difficult to Punish The Far-Right Leading The Riots Over The Southport Attack?

A flurry of far-right protests dominated this week’s news cycle, and more are on the horizon.

PM Keir Starmer has unveiled a new national violent disorder unit to crack down on such demonstrations – but is that enough to actually stop the unrest?

As one home office minister warned that the far-right could be looking to create a “summer madness”, here’s why it’s so tricky for the authorities to tackle this factional violence.

What sparked the protests this week?

Three girls under 10 were killed after a Southport knife attack on Monday night.

Ten others were also assaulted, and eight were hospitalised and in a critical condition as a result.

The 17-year-old suspect was then arrested, and charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.

The grieving local community held a vigil for the deceased on Tuesday, but it was soon hijacked by far-right protesters.

Galvanised by misinformation on social media about the suspect, they targeted a local mosque, threw missiles at police and left 39 officers seeking medical attention.

They shouted, “stop the boats” – mistakenly claiming the suspect was a migrant who arrived via the English Channel – and “protect out kids”.

On Wednesday night, similar far-right demonstrations sprung up in Hartlepool, where a police car was torched, and outside Downing Street in London, where more than 100 people ended up being arrested.

But, as PM Keir Starmer noted on Thursday, many of the attackers were “marauding mobs” who “have no interest whatsoever in the raw pain of the community in Southport”.

How did the authorities try to quell the wider violence?

The judge looking at the suspect at the centre of the killings took the extraordinary step of revealing his identity on Thursday, even though he is a 17-year-old minor.

Named as Cardiff-born Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, the judge in the case said he wanted to prevent misinformation filling the vacuum.

Starmer’s new policing unit was also meant to make policing more efficient, with different forces sharing intelligence and acting as back-up for one another.

But it’s believed all of these riots were triggered by people who had travelled from elsewhere to incite violence.

Is it possible to blame one group for this week’s unrest?

Merseyside Police said supporters of the English Defence League (EDL) were responsible for drumming up the riots, and some clips of the unrest from this week show people chanting the name of EDL’s founder, Tommy Robinson.

Set up by Steven Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) and a handful of others, the EDL was founded in 2009 and pulled together small anti-Muslim groups.

It has also been attended by members of the British National Party and the National Front.

At its peak – between 2009 and 2013 – it threatened councils and public bodies, swarmed shopping areas as flash demonstrations, promoted violence and disorder by recruiting and organised hooligan gangs to stretch police and community resources.

It also forced its prejudices upon the wider community, and aim to “foster disharmony and hatred” and widen community divisions.

It has held more than 100 demonstrations in more than 50 towns and cities since it was founded. 

But the EDL no longer exists as a whole organisation, making it tricky to pin the last week’s events on this group.

The EDL struggled to mobilise after Robinson left around a decade ago, after a failed stint trying to enter electoral politics.

Infighting means it has faded into the background since. 

Robinson also left the UK last weekend, due to a a major legal case against him about allegedly breaching an order not to repeat lies about a Syrian refugees.

Could the EDL be added to the terrorist organisation list?

Despite concerns about whether the extremist group still exists, deputy PM Angela Rayner said earlier this week that the EDL could be added to the UK’s list of terrorist organisations, something which would help disrupt the group’s actions.

She said: “We have laws and we have proscribed groups, and we do look at that and it is reviewed regularly.

“So I’m sure that that will be something that the Home Secretary [Yvette Cooper] will be looking at as part of the normal course of what we do and the intelligence that we have. 

“But I think the bigger issue is about taking on the minority of people that have got thuggish behaviour – that actually, that’s not our British values.”

Why would punishing the EDL not be enough?

According to the charity Hope Not Hate there were people with links to the EDL seen at the riots.

But, as it is such a fractured organisation now, just pursuing the EDL would not guarantee an end to the unrest.

Social media has elevated a range of figures and far-right messages online.

Much of the unrest seen in the last week can be traced back to false discourse on platforms.

As Hope Not Hate wrote on X: “The Southport riot is a direct consequence of far right influencers such as Andrew Tate, Nigel Farage and Laurence Fox spreading misinformation – it was not down to one group or one person.”

Andrew Tate is a viral misogynistic influencer who has an enormous following online.

He falsely claimed online that the suspect in the Southport attack was an “illegal migrant”.

His remark became part of a wider conversation, which constructed a completely false narrative around the suspect.

Meanwhile, Farage, who has for years been on the outskirts of British politics, has recently been elected to parliament.

He is now the leader of the group he founded, Reform UK, and an MP, having grown in prominence in the run-up to the EU referendum on Brexit.

Soon after the stabbings in Southport, he posted on social media suggesting that the police were hiding details of the attack from the public.

Laurence Fox is an actor who founded the right-wing party Reclaim, known for his anti-Covid vaccines stance and persistent criticism of “woke culture”.

He retweeted messages from Tate this week and has posted on X claiming there is a new movement of “the ignored” people who are no longer willing to “suck it up”.

What can be done to address this surge in support for the far-right?

Aside from banning such groups, there are several courses of action to take.

Hope Not Hate is calling for a new Community Cohesion Action Strategy to “encourage a more cohesive society,” after years without due to austerity, the pandemic and “political de-prioritisation”.

A report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on hate crime found there is “clear evidence that community cohesion programmes, especially those that build understanding through mixing and contact, improve relations between different communities”.

However the report said these programmes “are quite limited at the moment”.

Starmer has also called for more accountability from social media platform.

He said on Thursday: “Let me also say to large social media companies, and those who run them, violent disorder clearly whipped up online: that is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”

Indeed, the Social Change Agency said denying the far-right virtual platforms and those online is one of the main keys to prevent the spread of any hate.

Meanwhile, Hope Not Hate also calls for the general public to stay optimistic, once telling The Independent: “None of this will be enough unless we also offer real hope.”