Riots and the far right: The global network behind the violence

Published

6 months ago

October 15, 2024

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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”.

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.

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.

“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 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.

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.

UK

Michael Gove handed peerage – as Jeremy Hunt and cricketer James Anderson knighted

Published

4 hours ago

April 11, 2025

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Michael Gove handed peerage - as Jeremy Hunt and cricketer James Anderson knighted

Veteran cabinet minister Michael Gove has been awarded a peerage in Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list.

Mr Gove – now editor of The Spectator magazine – was first elected to parliament in 2005 and immediately joined then-Conservative leader David Cameron’s shadow cabinet.

He was appointed education secretary when the party entered government in 2010 and held multiple cabinet posts until the 2024 general election, when he stood down from parliament.

Mr Sunak elevated seven allies to the House of Lords, including former cabinet ministers Mark Harper, Victoria Prentis, Alister Jack, and Simon Hart. Former chief executive of the Conservative Party, Stephen Massey, also becomes a peer, as well as Eleanor Shawcross, former head of the No10 policy unit. He also awarded a number of honours.

It is traditional for prime ministers to award peerages and other gongs upon their resignation from office – with key political allies, donors and staff often rewarded.

An outgoing prime minister can request that the reigning monarch grants peerages, knighthoods, damehoods or other awards in the British honours system to any number of people.

In the case of peerages, the House of Lords Appointments Commission vets the list, and for other honours, the Cabinet Office conducts checks.

Resignation honours are separate from dissolution honours, which are awarded by the incumbent prime minister and opposition leaders after the dissolution of parliament preceding a general election.

Here are the biggest names given honours by Mr Sunak:

Michael Gove – peerage

From when the Conservatives returned to government in 2010, Michael Gove spent almost the whole time in a ministerial role.

After reforming the education system, he went on to hold roles like chief whip, environment secretary, justice secretary and housing secretary.

He led the pro-Brexit side of the 2016 referendum alongside Boris Johnson, and famously sunk the latter’s leadership bid with his own.

However, both failed at that juncture, and Mr Gove’s reputation never recovered to allow him another go at the top job.

The debt was repaid when Mr Johnson fired Mr Gove as his administration collapsed in 2022.

Mr Gove returned to government under Rishi Sunak, and ultimately retired from the Commons at the 2024 election.

James Anderson – knighthood

One of England’s most successful cricketers, Jimmy Anderson, has been awarded a knighthood in avid cricket fan Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list.

He is regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the sport, and holds the record for the most wickets taken by a fast bowler in Test cricket.

Jeremy Hunt – knighthood

A former chancellor and serial runner-up in Tory leadership competitions, Jeremy Hunt was ever present in Conservative cabinets while the party was in government.

He was both foreign secretary and defence secretary before failing to take over the party after Theresa May stood aside.

Following a stint on the backbenches, Mr Hunt returned as chancellor under Liz Truss in a bid to stabilise markets – retaining this position under Rishi Sunak.

Despite persistent speculation he was set to be ditched in favour of Claire Coutinho, Mr Hunt kept his job until the 2024 general election – where he won his seat and now sits as a backbencher.

James Cleverly – knighthood

A former leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, James Cleverly entered parliament at the 2015 general election as the MP for Braintree.

In 2018, he was appointed deputy chairman of the party, and in April 2019, was appointed a minister in the Brexit department.

Boris Johnson appointed him as party chairman after taking over the top job, and he took on a succession of junior ministerial posts before becoming education secretary following Mr Johnson’s resignation as prime minister.

Liz Truss appointed him as foreign secretary – a post he held until November 2023 when Rishi Sunak brought back David Cameron for the role, and he took over as home secretary – a post he held until the general election.

Mr Cleverly was one of the lucky cabinet ministers to survive the Labour landslide and retained his seat. But he was less successful in the Conservative Party leadership contest, losing out in the final round of MP voting.

Andrew Mitchell – knighthood

The former deputy foreign secretary has been a fixture in Westminster since 1987, when he was first elected as the MP for Gedling. He was appointed to the government in 1994, but lost his seat in the 1997 Tony Blair landslide.

He returned to parliament in 2001 as the MP for Sutton Coldfield, and took on a number of shadow cabinet and then cabinet roles, culminating in his appointment to the Foreign Office in 2022, before becoming deputy foreign secretary to David Cameron in 2024.

He rose to public prominence in September 2012 when he allegedly swore when a police officer told him to dismount his bicycle and leave Downing Street through the pedestrian gate rather than the main gate. The incident became known as “Plebgate”.

Mel Stride – knighthood

One of Rishi Sunak’s closest aides, he chaired his campaign to be Tory leader against Liz Truss and was rewarded with the Work and Pensions brief when his man finally entered Number 10.

He was also a prominent figure in the downfall of Ms Truss as chair of the Treasury select committee – regularly requesting information from the Treasury and Bank of England that highlighted damaging information.

A capable media performer, he was ever present during the general election as he tried unsuccessfully to get Mr Sunak back into office.

Mr Stride kept his seat after the vote, and was rewarded by Kemi Badenoch with a role as shadow chancellor of the exchequer.

Stephen Massey – peerage

Described as a “sensible man” by former chancellor George Osborne, Stephen Massey was appointed chief executive of the Conservative Party in November 2022 after Rishi Sunak took over as leader in the coronation leadership contest following the collapse of the Truss government.

Having spent his career as a financial adviser, Mr Sunak probably thought he was a safe pair of hands in which to entrust the leadership of the party machinery as they built their war chest ahead of the general election to come.

The personal donations of £343,000 to the party and £25,000 to Mr Sunak’s leadership campaign also likely made him an attractive candidate for the job.

Has Rishi Sunak previously awarded honours?

Mr Sunak previously granted peerages to former prime minister Theresa May, Sir Graham Brady, the former chairman of the influential Conservative backbench 1922 committee, as well as his right-hand man Liam Booth-Smith on 4 July 2024 – the day of the general election.

He lost the election by a landslide to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, and resigned as prime minister that day. He remains in parliament as the MP for Richmond and Northallerton.

UK

This is a remarkable step by the government – and Donald Trump, China and Reform UK have all played their part

Published

5 hours ago

April 11, 2025

admin

This is a remarkable step by the government - and Donald Trump, China and Reform UK have all played their part

When the sun sets on Scunthorpe this Saturday, the town’s steelworks will likely have a new boss – Jonathan Reynolds.

The law that parliament will almost certainly approve this weekend hands the business secretary the powers to direct staff at British Steel, order raw materials and, crucially, keep the blast furnaces at the plant open.

This is not full nationalisation.

But it is an extraordinary step.

The Chinese firm Jingye will – on paper – remain the owner of British Steel.

But the UK state will insert itself into the corporate set-up to legally override the wishes of the multinational company.

A form of martial law invoked and applied to private enterprise.

That will come at a cost to the taxpayer.

Follow latest: Live politics updates

No number has been specified, but there are wages to pay and orders to make at a site estimated to already be losing £700,000 a day.

There is also clear frustration in government at how the Chinese owners have engaged in negotiations around modernising the Scunthorpe site.

“Jingye have not been forthright throughout this process”, said the business secretary in his department’s official announcement about the new laws.

Time is so tight because of the nature of the steel-making process.

Once switched off, blast furnaces are very hard to turn back on.

If this had happened in Scunthorpe – as seemed likely in a matter of days – then it would have been game over.

This move keeps the show on the road and opens up more time for talks over the long-term future of the plant.

While the official line in Whitehall is that “all options are on the table”, nationalisation seems increasingly likely.

That would need more legislation, if it was done – as seems likely – without the approval of the current owner.

Finding an alternative commercial partner has not been ruled out, but one is not waiting in the wings either.

As for what that long-term future looks like, with just five years of life left in the Scunthorpe blast furnaces, modernisation is inevitable.

Port Talbot’s plant saw its blast furnaces closed last year amid a switch to the more environmentally friendly electric arc furnaces and a loss of thousands of jobs.

Political figures in Wales are now questioning why nationalisation wasn’t on the table for this site.

The response from government is that the deal was done by the previous Tory administration and the owners of the South Wales site agreed to the terms.

But there is also a sense that this decision over British Steel is being shaped by the domestic and international political context.

Labour came to power promising to revitalise left-behind communities and inject a sense of pride back into places still reeling from the loss of traditional industry.

With that in mind, it would be politically intolerable to see the UK’s last two blast furnaces closed and thousands of jobs lost in a relatively deprived part of the country.

Reform UK’s position of pushing for full and immediate nationalisation is also relevant, given the party is in electoral pursuit of Labour in many parts of the country where decline in manufacturing has been felt most acutely.

The geo-political situation is perhaps more pressing though.

Just look at the strength of the prime minister’s language in his Downing Street address – “our economic and national security are all on the line”.

The government’s reaction to the turmoil caused by President Donald Trump’s pronouncements on tariffs and security has been to emphasise the need to increase domestic resilience in both business and defence.

Becoming the only G7 nation unable to produce virgin steel at a time when globalisation appears to be in retreat hardly fits with that narrative.

It would also present serious practical questions about the ability of the UK to produce steel for defence and the broader switch to green energy production.

Then there is the intriguing subplot around US-China trade.

While this decision is separate from discussions with the White House on tariffs, one can imagine how a UK move to wrestle control of a site of national importance from its Chinese owner might go down with a US president currently engaged in a fierce trade war with Beijing.

This is a remarkable step from the government, but it is more a punctuation mark than a full answer.

The tension between manufacturing and decarbonisation remains, as do the challenges presented by a global economy appearing to fragment significantly.

But one thing is for sure.

As a political parable about changes to traditional industry and the challenges of globalisation, the saga of British Steel is hard to beat.

UK

Hundreds of barbers, car washes and American sweet shops raided in money laundering crackdown

Published

13 hours ago

April 11, 2025

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Hundreds of barbers, car washes and American sweet shops raided in money laundering crackdown

Hundreds of barber shops and other cash-heavy businesses have been targeted in a three-week money laundering blitz.

Police went to 265 premises, including vape shops, nail bars, American-themed sweet shops and car washes across England in a crackdown on high street crime.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said 35 arrests were made, 97 people suspected to be victims of modern slavery were placed under police protection, and bank accounts containing more than £1m were frozen.

More than £40,000 in cash, some 200,000 cigarettes, 7,000 packs of tobacco, and more than 8,000 illegal vapes were also seized during Operation Machinize, which involved 19 different police forces and regional organised crime units.

Officers also found two cannabis farms containing a total of 150 plants, while 10 shops have been shut down.

The NCA estimates that £12bn of criminal cash is generated in the UK each year with businesses such as barber shops, vape shops, nail bars, American-themed sweet shops and car washes often used by criminals.

Rachael Herbert, deputy director of the National Economic Crime Centre at the NCA, said: “Operation Machinize targeted barber shops and other high street businesses being used as cover for a whole range of criminality, all across the country.

“We have seen links to drug trafficking and distribution, organised immigration crime, modern slavery and human trafficking, firearms, and the sale of illicit tobacco and vapes.

“We know cash-intensive businesses are used as fronts for money laundering, facilitating some of the highest harm and highest impact offending in the UK.”

Security minister Dan Jarvis said the operation “highlights the scale and complexity of the criminality our towns and cities face”.

“High street crime undermines our security, our borders, and the confidence of our communities, and I am determined to take the decisive action necessary to bring those responsible to justice,” he said.