Riots and the far right: The global network behind the violence
The narrow medieval streets and canals of Strasbourg in France, on the border with Germany, have little in common with Southport in the UK. Yet the stabbing of three little girls there resonated for one man here. And his subsequent posts on social media resonated around the world – and back to the UK
In a business park on the edge of town, Silvano Trotta runs a successful telecoms business. But from his large private office, filled with miniature cars and pictures of his family, he spends much of his time posting online.
He came to prominence during COVID, publishing anti-vax posts, and getting banned from YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, before subsequently being reinstated on Elon Musk’s rebranded X, where he posts mainly about immigration.
Silvano Trotta in Strasbourg, France. Pic: Sky News
Trotta is bespectacled, genial, and unafraid of controversial views.
When the Southport stabbings happened on 29 July, he posted false information to the messaging app Telegram that they were carried out by an immigrant who had arrived on a small boat and gave the false name Ali Al Shakati. Our investigation shows that his post was one of the most influential of any of those making similar misleading claims on Telegram.
Silvano Trotta’s post spread misinformation about the Southport suspect’s name.
Trotta shrugs it off when I point out that this was entirely false.
“Who doesn’t make mistakes? But whatever happened, he is still a migrant, even if he was born in Wales.”
I’ve come to Strasbourg because what happened here is crucial to understanding what happened in the UK riots.
Strasbourg, France
We’ve worked with Prose, an open-source intelligence start-up, to understand the online conversation around Southport on Telegram, the app where the stabbings were discussed, the narrative was developed, and the riots were organised.
Previous reporting has highlighted specific pieces of misinformation that fuelled the riots: the fake name from news publisher Channel 3 Now, which they subsequently retracted and apologised for, and the individual bad actors in Telegram groups abroad.
But now Sky News can reveal the full story.
Sky’s Tom Cheshire examines the data with Prose boss Al Baker
Prose monitors more than 10,000 extremist and conspiracist groups on Telegram, every day collecting and archiving everything they post. Together, we looked at how active those groups were around Southport, starting on the day of the stabbings and for two weeks afterwards, looking at 11,051 total messages from 1,496 different chats and channels.
And what we found belies the idea that this was just a British reaction to a British issue. Out of the top 20 most influential accounts, in terms of reach, views and interaction, only six were from the UK. The rest were based abroad.
Out of the top 20 most influential accounts, in terms of reach, views and interaction, only six were from the UK.
“While all the action is happening on the ground and people in Britain are dealing with the consequences of this misinformation,” says Al Baker, managing director of Prose, “the people stoking the violence, the people flooding Telegram and other platforms of misinformation are largely based outside the UK.”
What it shows is the nature of the new far-right – not a tightly organised hierarchy based in a specific location, but an international network of influencers and followers, working together almost like a swarm to stir up trouble.
And it is extremely worrying for the security services. The head of MI5 Ken McCallum last week told Sky News that, compared to traditional radicalisation, the extreme right instead relies on a “pick and mix ideology” where people pull on hatred and misinformation from mostly online sources.
Rather than specific organisations, it is, he said, a “crowd-sourced model”.
MI5 Director General Ken McCallum. Pic: PA
Bristol, Saturday, 3 August and the streets were seething. A confrontation between protesters and counter-protestors turned into a running battle, first at Castle Park, and then down to the bridge below. Police horses repeatedly charged the rioters. They threw bottles back: I got one in the head while I was reporting.
Protesters face police during a riot on 3 August that took place in Bristol after the Southport incident. Pic: AP
The skirmishes continued outside the centre, up towards a hill and a hotel which houses asylum seekers. Eventually, it died away.
Those who took part though were left with the consequences: several were sentenced to years in prison. But they were not far-right extremists, as is traditionally understood.
“The unrest has been fuelled by disinformation that has been circulating, particularly on social media,” the judge said in his remarks.
One of those convicted for violent disorder was Dominic Capaldi, 34. He handed himself into the police.
Capaldi’s neighbour David Lomax told us that he “is just a caring bloke and a very quiet chap”.
“He got dragged into it somehow, and he didn’t realise what he was getting dragged into.
“And a lot of these people that do all these things, they don’t come from Bristol.”
Inciting those on the ground was a specific goal of the online far-right, according to Mr Baker, at Prose.
“These are communities which are expressly specifically and in a very dedicated and organised fashion devoted to exploiting racial divisions internationally,” Baker says.
“Any incident which could plausibly involve an immigrant, a Muslim, someone who isn’t white, regardless of whether in fact they did it or not, these communities are going to kick into action and try and stoke up division and racial hatred.”
This network map shows how those groups interact.
The points in the red cluster are UK-based, English-speaking accounts on Telegram, during the two weeks after the Southport murders. And they’re dwarfed by other groups. The purple is non-UK-based English-speaking accounts. Orange shows German, for example. Dark blue is pro-Russian accounts. Below them, in yellow, are Russian-speaking accounts.
And although the online far-right may be more shapeless, less structured, than the traditional version, it still contains the hardcore element.
“There are very extreme groups who routinely funnel information into these broader networks who were clearly, specifically, indirectly trying to incite a race war on the back of the Southport murders,” Mr Baker from Prose says.
Al Baker, the managing director at open-source intelligence firm Prose. Pic: Sky News
“The core of these communities are very serious people, including members of proscribed terrorist organisations, extreme neo-Nazi groups. The word ‘Nazis’ and the word ‘fascist’ is overused.
“But when I describe the groups that were influencing the tactics and the targets of the rioters, these are fully paid-up neo-Nazis who want to see the extermination of non-white people.”
Along with Telegram, X was also used to fuel the riots.
Here, research shared exclusively with Sky News by Ned Mendez, director of consultancy Clash Digital, found a similar emphasis on non-UK accounts. The most widely shared and retweeted content on Twitter/X during the initial three days of the unrest was primarily authored by non-domestic accounts from the USA and Europe, which repurposed local incidents to push inflammatory and divisive content into the UK discourse.
Jacqui McDonald, a freelance journalist who filmed the vigil after the Southport stabbing
Jacqui McDonald knows exactly how that works. She’s a freelance journalist who was covering a vigil in Southport the day after the attack and posted a video of the crowd that gathered to mourn together.
Amy Mek, an online influencer based in the US and known for promoting anti-immigration views, ripped Ms McDonald’s video and reposted it with her own comments, in which she said the Islamic community usually “swarm the streets” and “seize control of public spaces”.
This was the single most widely shared piece of content on X during the unrest. The original video earned 11,000 views; the repurposed content got 5.5million views in a few days.
I meet Jacqui in the square where she filmed the vigil. Tributes to the girls still stand – dolls tied to lampposts, handwritten cards in the flowerbeds. I show her Amy Mek’s post on X.
“It wasn’t true at all to what was happening in her language, the inflammatory use of what she was saying and the way she framed that video wasn’t what we were seeing in front of us,” she says.
“We were seeing a respectful, peaceful, quiet vigil for those children who had died that day.”
That is one of the tragedies of the riots, that they eclipsed the grief the town felt – and still feels.
A scene from the vigil filmed by Jacqui McDonald
Read more from Sky’s Data and Forensics team
How the far right hijacked Southport protests
Far-right outnumbers anti-racist movement on engagement
We asked several accounts for comment, including Amy Mek. She told us she rejected the labels far-right, hard-right and conspiracist, saying these were based on “biased generalisations” and added: “I unequivocally reject any form of violence that took place during the riots.”
She said Jacqui McDonald’s video had been sent to her as a tip and had assumed that the person who sent it had taken the footage. She said she was upset to hear it had originated from a freelance journalist and would ensure they received proper credit, along with a public statement.
“Just as I had no control over how the tipster’s video came to me without proper attribution, I also had no control over how others used or interpreted my content,” Mek said.
We also approached X but received no reply, while Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughan told us: “Telegram is not a place to spread violent content. Moderators removed UK groups and channels calling for violence when they were discovered in August…
“To dissuade criminal misuse of Telegram, IP Addresses and phone numbers of criminals who violate our rules can be disclosed to the authorities in response to valid legal requests. We are ready to cooperate with the UK government through the appropriate channels.”
The concern is that it may all happen again, that the online far-right remains active – as the head of MI5 warned – and that this wasn’t a one-off but a playbook, one that will be more effective next time.
“Large swathes of the online far-right see Southport as a missed opportunity,” Mr Baker says. “There is a huge amount of recrimination, people blaming one another for how quickly the riots fizzled out.”
“And I think we should be very concerned that they’re not going to make the same mistake twice.”
Southport is a memorial – and it is a warning.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Changes to how death certificates are issued in England and Wales have made the grieving process more “stressful”, according to bereaved families.
Anne Short died on New Year’s Eve, only a few months after she was diagnosed with cancer.
Her son Elliot, 30, from Newport, South Wales, says the grieving process was made harder after having to wait eight weeks to hold her funeral.
“Quite frankly, it’s ridiculous, when you’re already going through all this pain and suffering as a family,” he told Sky News.
“You can’t move on, you can’t do anything, you can’t arrange anything, you can’t feel that they’re at peace, you can’t put yourself at peace, because of a process that’s been put in that nobody seems to know anything about at the moment.”
That process has been introduced by the government to address “concerns” about how causes of death were previously scrutinised, following high-profile criminal cases such as those of Harold Shipman and Lucy Letby.
Up until last September, causes of death could be signed off by a GP, but now they have to be independently scrutinised by a medical examiner, before a death certificate can be issued.
Anne Short
‘I felt helpless’
Mr Short said he was ringing “twice a day” for a progress update, but that it was “going through too many sets of hands”.
Until the death certificate was issued, Ms Short’s body could not be released into the care of the funeral director.
“The main stress for me was knowing that she was up there [at the hospital] and I couldn’t move her, so I felt helpless, powerless,” he said.
“I felt like I’d let her down in a lot of ways. I know now, looking back, that there’s nothing that we could have done, but at the time it was adding a lot of stress. I just wanted her out of there.”
Elliot Short had to wait eight weeks to hold his mother’s funeral
‘Something has to be done’
Mr Short fears there’s a risk the new process might defeat its purpose.
“There’s other people that I know that have lost since, where it’s been in a care home or something like that, where they haven’t been happy with the care they’ve had, but they haven’t raised that because you’re in this bubble of grief and you just want to get it done,” he said.
“Something has to be done about that because I think it just drags on the grief and there’s obviously a danger then of it being against the reasons why they’re trying to do it.”
Arrangements after the death of his father less than two years ago was a “much easier process”, according to Mr Short.
“I lost my father as well 15 months before, so we went through the process prior to this coming in and we had the death certificate, he died at home, but we had it within three days,” he added.
Elliot Short
‘State of limbo’
James Tovey is the sixth generation of his family running Tovey Bros, a funeral director in Newport.
He told Sky News that the delays were having a “huge impact” on the business and that the families they serve were being “left in a state of limbo” for weeks after their bereavement.
“I would say that most funerals will take place perhaps two to four weeks after the person’s passed away, whereas now it’s much more like four to six weeks, so it is quite a significant difference,” he said.
“It’s one thing on top of an already distressing time for them and we’re frustrated and upset for [the families] as much as anybody else and it’s just annoying that we can’t do anything about it.”
James Tovey
Mr Tovey said that the reform was “very useful” and he remained supportive of it.
“It’s just the delays. I’m sure they can do something about that over time, but it’s just waiting for that to happen, and I wish that could be addressed sooner rather than later,” he added.
“It does put pressure on other people, it’s not just ourselves, it’s pressure on the hospitals, on crematoria, on the registrar service and everyone else involved in our profession.
“But of course all of us we’re there to serve the families, and we’re just upset for them and wish we could do more to help.”
The organisation representing funeral directors has called for “urgent action”
The National Association of Funeral Directors said some areas of England and Wales are experiencing much shorter delays than others, but has called for “urgent action”.
Rachel Bradburne, its director of external affairs, said the system was “introduced for all the right reasons” but that it was “not working as well as we need it to”.
“Funeral directors are relaying stories of delays, frustration, and bottlenecks on a daily basis, and urgent action is required to review and recalibrate the new system,” she added.
‘Unintended consequences’
Dr Roger Greene is the deputy chief executive of bereavement charity AtALoss.
He told Sky News that the delays were “one of the unintended consequences of what’s a well-intended reform of a system”.
“What has actually happened is that the number of deaths now requiring independent scrutiny has trebled,” he said.
“So in England and Wales in 2023, the last full year of data, there were nearly 200,000 deaths reported to a coroner, whereas there were 600,000 deaths.
“Now, what is the change in the process is that all deaths now need to be reported for independent scrutiny.”
Dr Roger Greene
Dr Greene said there may be ways the system could be “tweaked a little bit”, such as giving medical examiners the ability to issue an interim death certificate.
“We believe that people can process grief well if they’re given the opportunity and they’ve got a proper understanding,” he added.
“But the systems that we have in the country need to be able to work as well with that diversity of faith and culture.”
‘Vital improvements’
Jason Shannon, lead medical examiner for Wales, told Sky News he recognised “the importance of a seamless, accurate and timely death certification process”.
“Medical examiners are one part of the wider death certification process and were introduced to give additional independent safeguards as well as to give bereaved people a voice, which they hadn’t had before,” he added.
“Medical examiners have no role in determining where the body of a family’s relative is cared for and except in a minority of deaths where a coroner needs to be involved, that decision should be one that a family is fully empowered to make in a way that is best for them.”
A Welsh government spokesperson said they “would like to apologise to any families who have experienced delays in receiving death certificates”.
The government said it was working with the lead medical examiner and the NHS in Wales “to understand where the delays are” and how to provide bereaved families with “additional support”.
Read more from Sky News:
Families feel impact of spiralling funeral costs
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A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said it recognised there were “some regional variations in how long it takes to register a death”.
They added that the changes to the death certification process “support vital improvements to patient safety and aim to provide comfort and clarity to the bereaved”.
Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled as part of the survey by the NASUWT teaching union, and nearly three in five (59%) of teachers said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
The findings have been published during the union’s annual conference, which is taking place in Liverpool this weekend.
One motion that is set to be debated at the conference calls on the union’s executive to work with teachers “to assess the risk that far-right and populist movements pose to young people”.
Andrew Tate was referenced by a number of teachers who took part in the survey, who said he had negative influence on male pupils.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”.
Another teacher said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils at an all-boys school] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine'”.
While another respondent to the survey said their school had experienced some incidents of “derogatory language towards female staff…as a direct result of Andrew Tate videos”.
Last month, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hosted a discussion in Downing Street on how to prevent young boys from being dragged into a “whirlpool of hatred and misogyny”.
The talks were with the creators of Netflix drama Adolescence, which explored so-called incel culture.
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‘An urgent need for action’
Patrick Roach, the union’s general secretary, said “misogyny, racism and other forms of prejudice and hatred…are not a recent phenomenon”.
He said teachers “cannot be left alone to deal with these problems” and that a “multi-agency response” was needed.
“There is an urgent need for concerted action involving schools, colleges and other agencies to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists,” Mr Roach added.
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A spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE) said: “Education can be the antidote to hate, and the classroom should be a safe environment for sensitive topics to be discussed and where critical thinking is encouraged.
“That’s why we provide a range of resources to support teachers to navigate these challenging issues, and why our curriculum review will look at the skills children need to thrive in a fast-changing online world.”
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