A fake news website with links to Russia was behind a string of phoney claims posted in the wake of the tragic stabbings in Southport that fuelled far-right rallies in the North West and across England.
There was a second night of disorder and unrest on Wednesday (31/7) following the attacks in the North West, with more than 100 people arrested in London after protesters in Whitehall launched beer cans and glass bottles at police and threw flares at the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square.
Demonstrators wearing England flags and waving banners saying “enough is enough” and “stop the boats” had congregated outside Downing Street in the wake of the killing of three young girls in a knife attack in Southport.
The angry scenes also included loud chants of: “We want our country back” and: “Oh Tommy Robinson,” referring to the right-wing activist. One man wore a shirt with the slogan: “Nigel Farage for Prime Minister, Tommy Robinson for Home Secretary.”
The violence has been stirred up by false claims the triple murder suspect was an asylum seeker called Ali Al-Shakati who arrived in the UK on a small boat and was ‘on the MI6 watchlist’.
The claims were amplified by social media account Channel3 Now, which masquerades as an American news website and whose inflammatory post was viewed by nearly two million people before being deleted.
The Daily Mail has revealed that Channel3 Now, which claims to be based in the US but has paid for high-end privacy protections, started life 11 years ago as a Russian YouTube channel that posted videos of rally-driving in the snow in Izhevsk, a Russian city about 750 miles east of Moscow
The allegations were leapt on by Russian state media, hard-Right activist Tommy Robinson, and misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate, who added fuel to the fire by telling his 10 million followers that an ‘illegal migrant’ has stabbed ‘6 little girls’, adding: ‘Wake up.’
Nigel Farage also questioned whether the public is being told everything about the attacks, claims which appear to be baseless.
Related: Southport rioter becomes poster boy for right-wing imbecility