In the aftermath of a mass stabbing in Southport, UK, misinformation spread quickly across social media. In the 24 hours after the attack, false claims that the attacker was a Muslim migrant fuelled far-right violence, leading to the hijacking of a community-organised vigil for the victims.

In a radio interview with Ben Kentish at LBC, ISD’s Director of Policy and Research for Counter-Extremism, Milo Comerford, discussed how these false claims escalated into offline violence.

Milo explained how this incident exemplifies a broader trend where bad actors exploit gaps of information after tragic events to promote their agenda.

“Unfortunately, it is a pretty typical situation that we’ve seen really both online and in the streets. I think this ability to seize on polarisation, on uncertainty, on gaps of information, allows those with headlined ideological agendas to come in and blame vulnerable groups […], particularly migrants and Muslims. Again and again, we’ve seen these two groups being singled out,” he said.

He further emphasised how these claims are baseless and have been debunked by the police: “…It doesn’t have to have any basis of truth. It really is just about these sort of preexisting campaigns, and a preexisting disposition towards assuming that all problems that are facing the UK have to do with specific groups.”

When asked about how to tackle these threats, Milo emphasised the importance of disaggregating the different challenges. He explained how looking at these online actors and communities as terrorist organisations with similar structures to al-Qaeda or ISIS “misses the nature of the challenge”.

“I think banning these organisations misses the nature of the challenge here, and also misses the fact that actually very often this is not about terrorism, it’s about broader hate, it’s about the mainstreaming of far-right extremism through politics as well. It’s not about sort of terrorist violence, but it’s actually a much larger set of challenges which are going to be harder to confront,” he said.

The full interview is available on Global Player. Milo’s segment begins at 11:04.