https://isj.org.uk/confronting-far-right/

Issue: 184
Posted on 2nd October 2024
Joseph Choonara

[A bit long]

There are moments when the flood tide of history threatens to overwhelm individuals and organisations, rendering them almost powerless.1 There are other moments, when, with sufficient clarity, a willingness to strike out in a new direction and a modicum of revolutionary élan, the tide can be turned. Such a moment was reached in Britain in summer 2024.

On 29 July, three children were killed at a multiple stabbing at a dance studio in Southport, Merseyside. Within hours, misinformation spread online stating that the perpetrator was Muslim or an asylum seeker or both. By the following night, a far-right mob had gathered to hurl bricks and bottles at a mosque near the site of the stabbings, clashing with police. Over the following six days, racist riots spread across much of Britain and to Belfast in the north of Ireland, many targeting mosques or hotels believed to be housing asylum seekers.

The riots were not spontaneous outbursts. They were initiated and directed by a network of far-right individuals and groups via Telegram, X and other platforms.2 Alongside right-wing football supporters’ “firms” and the remnants of the Football Lads Alliance3 were supporters of Patriotic Alternative, National Action, the British Movement, Britain First and the Ulster Defence Association. They were joined by shadowy networks such as Terrorgram, a collective of Telegram social media channels proscribed earlier this year, and Active Club England, an offshoot of a US-based neo-Nazi outfit. Joe Marsh (also known as Joe Butler) and David Miles, two Patriotic Alternative activists, were pictured at Southport. Matthew Hankinson, who recently served jail time as a member of the proscribed group National Action, posted from the scene on X.4 Ctd....