Speculation, Hatred and Opportunism: Reactions to latest on Southport Attack Suspect

Right Response Team - 30 10 24

The latest news has seen many, ranging from Tory party leadership hopefuls and Reform MPs through to far-right activists and fascists, ignore the police’s call to avoid speculation. 

News emerged yesterday that Axel Rudakubana, the suspect accused of murdering three young girls in Southport, is now facing two further charges related to producing the poison ricin and for possessing material likely to be useful to someone preparing a terrorist attack. 

At a press conference held by Merseyside police, Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said: “The matter for which Axel Rudakubana has been charged with under the Terrorism Act does not require motive to be established. For a matter to be declared a terrorist incident, motivation would need to be established.” 

The police have not, as yet, designated the horrifying attack as a terrorist incident, with Kennedy pleading with people to “be patient” and to not “engage in rumour speculation.” 

“Don’t believe everything you read on social media. We must not lose sight of the families of Elsie, Bebe and Alice, who are still grieving, and the families of the others who were present at Hart Street on 29 July,” she added. 

Unsurprisingly, however, many people, ranging from Tory party leadership hopefuls and Reform MPs through to far-right activists and fascists, have ignored the police’s call to avoid speculation. 

Outpouring of Anti-Muslim Hate

While no motive has yet been outlined, the news that Rudakubana was found in possession of a military study of an al-Qaeda training manual has been used to ascribe motive by many. 

This speculation has resulted in an outpouring of anti-Muslim hatred by far-right activists seeking to exploit the announcement to advance their own hateful politics. 

Rudakubana’s motivations remain unconfirmed. Whatever they were, there is no justifying the horrifying outpouring of racist violence that exploded on the streets of the UK earlier this year, which saw violent attacks on mosques, hotels, emergency services and random members of the public. 

This has not stopped some far-right activists calling for the release of those imprisoned for rioting. As yet, no far-right demonstrations have yet been planned in direct response to the announcement, though there will be a pro-Tommy Robinson demonstration outside Belmarsh prison on Saturday that could become a focus for wider concerns related to Southport. 

Others have fervently attacked Prime Minister Keir Starmer for supposedly orchestrating a coverup and concealing details of the case for political purposes. Worryingly, this narrative has extended beyond the far right, with elected politicians releasing irresponsibly unevidenced statements. 

The irresponsibility of such statements goes beyond their potential to inflame tensions. They could possibly prejudice ongoing legal proceedings and thus be unlawful. Now is not the time to score cheap political points.  

Below is a summary of the various reactions to yesterday’s news, ranging from the Conservative party through to the extreme far right. 

Conservative & Radical Right

Some on the mainstream right were quick to exploit the sparse new details released in the case for their own agendas, variously ignoring pleas to avoid speculation, standard procedures in reporting of live investigations and the known facts of the case in the process. 

The two finalists in the race to take over leadership of the Conservative Party issued prompt statements. Robert Jenrick MP claimed that he was “seriously concerned that the facts may have been withheld from the public” and that “the public had the right to know the truth straight away”. He also claimed that “the hard reality of mass migration is being covered up”, apparently ignoring the fact that the suspect was born in the UK.

Jenrick’s rival for the leadership Kemi Badenoch MP tweeted that there are “serious questions to be asked of the police, the CPS and also of Keir Starmer’s response”, but suggested that Parliament is the appropriate place for these to be asked and cautioned against prejudicing the case. 

A gleeful-sounding Nigel Farage was predictably quick to centre himself in the news, suggesting that he was “right all along”, while former Reform UK chairman Ben Habib condemned Starmer for “gaslighting protesters, accusing them of being far right” and suggested he should have “woken up, stopped the boats, slashed immigration, deported all people in this country who entered illegally, deported all foreign criminals and put a protective blanket around the UK”.

The radical right commentator Matt Goodwin went further still, producing a video in which he claimed that “our political class” had “framed much of the rest of the country as far-right thugs” and imprisoned people merely for posting their views on “Islam’s capacity to integrate into Great Britain” and “the fact that we are simply letting in too many people who hate who we are”, again ignoring the fact that Rudakubana is believed to have been born in Cardiff.

Anti-Muslim Activists

The UK’s anti-Muslim movement, which includes both unaligned activists as well as more formal organisations like the political party Britain First, have responded predictably.

As expected, they have lept to conclusions regarding the beliefs and motivations of the attacker, despite none of this information being in the public domain for legal reasons. 

Britain First’s leader, Paul Golding, and other figures in the anti-migrant movement, including the activist Jeremy Davis (AKA “Little Boats”) swiftly attributed a religion and motive to the alleged attacker. 

This type of unevidenced and opportunistic speculation could threaten the viability of Rudakabuna’s forthcoming trial, as a defence team could argue that a fair trial is impossible. 

Going further still, Davis stated that the time had come to “start eradicating Islam from Britain”, whilst anti-progressive pressure group, Turning Point UK, stated that “Britain has a radical Islam problem”.

Immediately looking to capitalise on the anger, Britain First launched a petition calling for Starmer’s resignation as PM. It claims that the “new evidence completely vindicates [their emphasis] every patriot that the government and media labelled as ‘far-right’ in the aftermath of the Southport attack”. This has been a second genre of narrative mobilised within the movement: that Starmer has been complicit in a cover-up and wrongfully smeared rioters.

For many in this section of the movement, there has been a leap made from Starmer’s supposed role in concealing information, to a conclusion that rioters were therefore wrongfully imprisoned and must be released. For example, the close associate of Tommy Robinson, Liam Tuffs, tweeted that because of the new information about the attacker “the protesters who were jailed should be released immediately”. 

This has been a concerning development in the mindset within the far right; that the updated charges against Rudakabuna in some way excuse and justify the mob violence seen during the race riots in July and August.

Fascists and Ethnonationalists

For the most extreme elements on the far right, claims that the attack was religiously motivated clashed with their main narrative, i.e. that the murders were somehow the result of “innate racial characteristics” rather than religion. Nonetheless, many of the UK’s fascists have taken the opportunity to spread conspiracy theories and to drive attention towards their own organisations. 

For example, Patriotic Alternative (PA), the UK’s largest neo-Nazi group, has recently tried to rebrand itself as a “white civil rights” organisation and raise funds that it claims will be used to “support” those convicted in the wake of the riots and disorder this summer. It is therefore unsurprising that PA leader Mark Collett immediately exploited the news and called for the release of one of the few prisoners sentenced for online offences. 

Meanwhile Kenny Smith, leader of the PA splinter Homeland Party, mislabelled Rudakubana as a “Somalian” (his parents are from Rwanda), claimed that Starmer had “demonised the people” and took the opportunity to advertise his own small fascist party, claiming it would “protect our children”. 

Bizarrely, David Clews of the antisemitic conspiracy theory machine Unity News Network has suggested that the notion that the newly released information is a “diversion”. He has also suggested that information has been released to benefit the so-called “counter-jihad” movement, a primarily anti-Muslim and less antisemitic segment of the far right, and “will gain support for Israel”. 

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