Whether you think these articles are any good or not Gaz, myself & several others find them extremely useful & give a good gauge of ‘ground truth’ that you wouldn’t find or read in any kind of mainstream publication. Look forward to these every day. Keep up this very important work!
‘The truth is, there is no significant or capable far-right movement in the UK’… this surely depends on your definition of significant or capable.
We’ve had some form of hard right movement going on for years. Before he died Eddy Morrison ran several parties under different names, and then you’ve got people like Britain First, British democrats and proscribed groups like National action and others.
I would agree broadly on the capable front- while we’ve had several right wing terror plots/attacks since 2000 they’re overwhelmingly lone wolf type randomers and having had the joy/misfortune to have to work several of TR’s recent high profile events the most half that crowd look capable of is qualifying for pensions and/or emergency dentistry.
But as for ‘significant’, I would argue a lot of this group are achieving a level of national attention that outstrips their numbers or popular support. The press are giving them a lot of attention, they’re all over social media and their propaganda is being amplified like crazy over Twitter especially since everyone’s favourite South African trust fund baby took over. The more this happens the better the breeding ground for individual self-radicalisation of disaffected/mentally unwell individuals.
The scroll from the other day is a good example of this, where you featured the tweet of the guy that was stopped and searched and had a knife found. The tweeter stated the man was on his way to ‘attack the vigil’, despite zero evidence, and the idea was floated that may have been the inciting incident that led to the mosque getting attacked. Personally knowing people who are job in Merseyside, a teenager getting caught carrying a knife is about as unusual as someone going out for milk and We know now that a significant group of people came into Southport specifically to cause trouble at that mosque, so it probably wasn’t, but this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For several days after the Southport attack, Twitter ‘knew’ the name religion and motivation of the attacker (spoiler, they didn’t), and were using that false information to mobilise the usual suspects. Any attempt to contradict that was being dismissed as ‘mainstream media misinformation’.
Now it turns out the attacker is actually born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and has been under DOLS (suggesting severe mental health/behavioral issues, which I think was a given once they ruled out terrorism), but the anti Islamic rhetoric is still all over Twitter.
Twitter also gives you your answer on the differences in policing of the riots in Southport Hartlepool and London and the riot in Harehills in Leeds. Harehills was spontaneous and kicked off from nowhere, much like the unrest that happed after those kids on the bike wiped out while running from police in wales. The disorder from the last few days however they knew was going to happen- it was all over Twitter, it was all over Facebook and other social media. It’s worth pointing out they’ve been filming every single TR rally for months/years- anyone that’s been to his events probably has had their picture uploaded to a database at this point (I believe there is actually a conspiracy theory out there he’s a ‘useful idiot’ intelligence asset/informer), and if you’ve actually been looked at or nicked for kicking off for this crap before, the police can track you through the train networks before you’ve even got to where you’re going. It’s way easier to co-ordinate a public order response when the people planning to riot have the social media opsec skills of your grandad commenting on publicly visible bikini posts on facebook.
Kier Starmer also isn’t inexperienced on this front. Nazir Afzal (prosecutor who went after the Rochdale grooming gangs) has spoken in glowing terms several times about the support, funding and work Starmer put in while at his old job to help him prosecute them (efforts BJ notoriously discribed as ‘money spaffed up the wall’). Like him or loath him the dude’s got a solid record as DPP, and it was a source of much frustration for the last gov they couldn’t actually do much to pick it apart.
I’m wondering if this is going to all lead to a more joined up police force in the UK. There have been several significant incidents that exposed the lack of inter-force sharing of intelligence in the UK over the years so I wouldn’t be surprised if we are heading for a major shakeup on that front.
Great analysis, you’re exactly right. Starmer is acting deliberately but I can’t for the life of me understand why - usually money and/or power but I don’t see how it is in this case. What do we do about it is the question? And I can’t work that out either. Not a very useful addition to the argument! But I’m trying to work on it.
It’s a wild notion but as a former DPP, Starmer may simply just not be a fan of criminals. He played a quiet but key part in going after the grooming gangs (which was almost completely overlooked) and he had a decent record in the post. With the current rhetoric on Twitter surrounding the Southport attacks there’s almost guaranteed to be some form of right wing extremist retaliation beyond just the usual rent a mob we’ve seen so far this week so some level of proactivity makes a nice change from the last lot.
Whether you think these articles are any good or not Gaz, myself & several others find them extremely useful & give a good gauge of ‘ground truth’ that you wouldn’t find or read in any kind of mainstream publication. Look forward to these every day. Keep up this very important work!
Lot to unpack here.
‘The truth is, there is no significant or capable far-right movement in the UK’… this surely depends on your definition of significant or capable.
We’ve had some form of hard right movement going on for years. Before he died Eddy Morrison ran several parties under different names, and then you’ve got people like Britain First, British democrats and proscribed groups like National action and others.
I would agree broadly on the capable front- while we’ve had several right wing terror plots/attacks since 2000 they’re overwhelmingly lone wolf type randomers and having had the joy/misfortune to have to work several of TR’s recent high profile events the most half that crowd look capable of is qualifying for pensions and/or emergency dentistry.
But as for ‘significant’, I would argue a lot of this group are achieving a level of national attention that outstrips their numbers or popular support. The press are giving them a lot of attention, they’re all over social media and their propaganda is being amplified like crazy over Twitter especially since everyone’s favourite South African trust fund baby took over. The more this happens the better the breeding ground for individual self-radicalisation of disaffected/mentally unwell individuals.
The scroll from the other day is a good example of this, where you featured the tweet of the guy that was stopped and searched and had a knife found. The tweeter stated the man was on his way to ‘attack the vigil’, despite zero evidence, and the idea was floated that may have been the inciting incident that led to the mosque getting attacked. Personally knowing people who are job in Merseyside, a teenager getting caught carrying a knife is about as unusual as someone going out for milk and We know now that a significant group of people came into Southport specifically to cause trouble at that mosque, so it probably wasn’t, but this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For several days after the Southport attack, Twitter ‘knew’ the name religion and motivation of the attacker (spoiler, they didn’t), and were using that false information to mobilise the usual suspects. Any attempt to contradict that was being dismissed as ‘mainstream media misinformation’.
Now it turns out the attacker is actually born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and has been under DOLS (suggesting severe mental health/behavioral issues, which I think was a given once they ruled out terrorism), but the anti Islamic rhetoric is still all over Twitter.
Twitter also gives you your answer on the differences in policing of the riots in Southport Hartlepool and London and the riot in Harehills in Leeds. Harehills was spontaneous and kicked off from nowhere, much like the unrest that happed after those kids on the bike wiped out while running from police in wales. The disorder from the last few days however they knew was going to happen- it was all over Twitter, it was all over Facebook and other social media. It’s worth pointing out they’ve been filming every single TR rally for months/years- anyone that’s been to his events probably has had their picture uploaded to a database at this point (I believe there is actually a conspiracy theory out there he’s a ‘useful idiot’ intelligence asset/informer), and if you’ve actually been looked at or nicked for kicking off for this crap before, the police can track you through the train networks before you’ve even got to where you’re going. It’s way easier to co-ordinate a public order response when the people planning to riot have the social media opsec skills of your grandad commenting on publicly visible bikini posts on facebook.
Kier Starmer also isn’t inexperienced on this front. Nazir Afzal (prosecutor who went after the Rochdale grooming gangs) has spoken in glowing terms several times about the support, funding and work Starmer put in while at his old job to help him prosecute them (efforts BJ notoriously discribed as ‘money spaffed up the wall’). Like him or loath him the dude’s got a solid record as DPP, and it was a source of much frustration for the last gov they couldn’t actually do much to pick it apart.
I’m wondering if this is going to all lead to a more joined up police force in the UK. There have been several significant incidents that exposed the lack of inter-force sharing of intelligence in the UK over the years so I wouldn’t be surprised if we are heading for a major shakeup on that front.
Interesting times.
Hope you are all ready re-my reply 🥷🏻
Another excellent article. Thank you
Cheers Rob, they won't all be good - as you'll have seen 😂 - but sometimes they're ok.
Great analysis, you’re exactly right. Starmer is acting deliberately but I can’t for the life of me understand why - usually money and/or power but I don’t see how it is in this case. What do we do about it is the question? And I can’t work that out either. Not a very useful addition to the argument! But I’m trying to work on it.
It’s a wild notion but as a former DPP, Starmer may simply just not be a fan of criminals. He played a quiet but key part in going after the grooming gangs (which was almost completely overlooked) and he had a decent record in the post. With the current rhetoric on Twitter surrounding the Southport attacks there’s almost guaranteed to be some form of right wing extremist retaliation beyond just the usual rent a mob we’ve seen so far this week so some level of proactivity makes a nice change from the last lot.