The News
A group believed to be linked to the far-right English Defense League targeted a mosque in Merseyside, England on Tuesday following a vigil for three children who were killed in a knife attack earlier this week. Police arrested a teenager suspected of carrying out the attack that left seven others injured. 53 police were injured in the rioting.
The group coopted the incident for “political purposes,” the town’s local member of parliament said.
SIGNALS
An ‘early test’ for Keir Starmer’s new government
The knife attack and subsequent rioting posed an “early test” for Keir Starmer’s new Labour government and its handling of both the far-right and violent crime, Bloomberg wrote. The prime minister’s renewed pledge to tackle knife crime following the attack came as figures showed such incidents across England and Wales had risen by 78% over the past decade, The Independent reported. Politicians often say the solution is more police on the streets and longer sentences for offenders, but Britain’s prisons are already on the verge of collapse, even with Labour’s plans to release thousands of inmates early.
Online disinformation fueled tensions
The Tuesday night violence was likely fueled by online conspiracies about the suspect’s identity and whether he was an asylum seeker. On social media, Channel 3 Now was one of the first to falsely identify the suspect, and while it later apologized, the damage was already done: Right-wing influencers looking to generate traffic amplified the claims, which spread rapidly among followers committed to far-right politics, the director of think tank British Future told The Associated Press. “There’s a parallel universe where what was claimed by these rumors were the actual facts of the case,” he said. “And that will be a difficult thing to manage.”
US influence on British nationalism
Nigel Farage is a long-time Donald Trump acolyte, and his Reform UK party campaigned the recent election on a distinctly Trumpist platform with its promise to “make Britain great again.” Trump’s former campaign manager, Steve Bannon — who once predicted a “nationalist uprising” would install Farage as Britain’s prime minister — has also significantly influenced nationalist politics in the UK, the executive editor of UK alternative outlet Byline Times argued: Bannon’s embrace of “great replacement” and “deep state” conspiracies echo some British conservative politicians’ warnings about “Islamists” and asylum seekers taking over the country — claims that have moved from the fringe to the mainstream of right-wing politics, one antiracism advocate told The Guardian.