It’s been a dark time in the UK the past few weeks. Following a senseless act of unimaginable violence in a quiet seaside town, chaos has erupted across the nation.
Right-wing thugs have taken a national tragedy as an excuse to enact violence and engulf towns across the country in riots. Social media has played a huge role in this spread of hate, as Elon Musk has helped to personally demonstrate.
A National Tragedy
Towns and cities all across the UK have been rocked by violent right-wing riots. It all started in the wake of a tragic and senseless act of violence in the small North West town of Southport.
Following a Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance class, a 17-year-old man with a knife attacked the crowd of people leaving the venue, sadly killing three young girls and injuring more people.
No Time to Mourn
This act of brutality obviously shocked the small community, but there was unfortunately little time to mourn the tragic loss of these three young children killed before their lives even began.
In the wake of the attack and a peaceful vigil for the victims, violence erupted in Southport as right-wing thugs targeted a local mosque, throwing bricks, bottles and other projectiles at police attempting to quell the violence.
A Truly Senseless Reaction
In the days and now weeks that followed, similar “protests” have broken out all around the country.
Rioters claim to be protecting the children of the UK and protesting uncontrolled immigration, which they have somehow equated as being responsible for the Southport knife attack. The facts of the matter don’t quite support this.
Unjust Justification From the Right-Wing
The suspect who police have arrested in connection with the Southport knife attack was actually born in the UK in Wales to Rwandan parents.
If this is the case, obvious questions arise as to why this attack sparked anti-immigration demonstrations and the targeting of mosques, despite Rwanda, and indeed Wales, for that matter, being predominantly Christian countries.
Attacking Society’s Most Vulnerable
In the South Yorkshire city of Rotherham, thugs started attacking accommodation for asylum seekers.
Oliver Coppard of the South Yorkshire police said: “[These asylum seekers] are people who have come from some of the most violent, poorest parts of the world, and they have come here looking for safety. And then they’ve been attacked, in our community, and faced the same sort of violence as they’ve faced at home here in South Yorkshire. And I’m appalled by that.
Every Right to Be Here
The façade of peaceful anti-immigration protests quickly faded. In Belfast, rioters burned down Muslim-owned businesses, paying no attention to the fact that their immigration status gives them every right to live and work in the UK.
Professor Lee McGowan at Belfast Queen’s University, who studies far-right groups, said: “These influencers are channeling hate. In Belfast, we have seen some shops attacked even where the owners – who are paying taxes and contributing to society – and are legally entitled to be here, have had their premises attacked and burnt out.”
Social Media at Play
Unsurprisingly in the modern landscape, social media was part of the problem. Immediately following the attack, misinformation regarding the perpetrator began to spread online.
A fake name began to be circulated, along with a totally fictitious backstory that the knifeman was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in the UK. Despite police urging people not to spread what they confirmed was false information, the damage was done.
Lighting a Powder Keg
Even if the information was demonstrably untrue, this was all the spark that was needed to set off right-wing, anti-immigrant rioters.
With the dangers of social media misinformation so perfectly crystalized in real, tangible harm and damage, obviously Elon Musk could be relied upon to irresponsibly wade in and make things worse.
Musk Getting in on the Action
The Tesla chief exec took to X, the platform that saw a 40% dip in revenue after he purchased it, to respond to a post that blamed the violent demonstrations in the UK on “mass migration and open borders.”
Musk’s response was a pithy, though irresponsible, one. He simply wrote: “Civil war is inevitable.”
Beyond Irresponsible
Unsurprisingly, the response in the UK to Musk’s chiming in on the violence has been pretty uniform. Politicians and news outlets have been quick to condemn him.
A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer addressed Musk’s comments, saying, “There’s no justification for that,” while North East Mayor Kim McGuinness was a little firmer, describing his comments as “beyond irresponsible.”
They Do Not Represent Britain
The Prime Minister of Britain, Sir Keir Starmer, said there is no place for racist disinformation in person or on social media.
Starmer warned that the full force of the law would come down on those stoking the flames of racist violence. “If you’re inciting violence, it doesn’t matter whether it’s online or offline. And therefore, I expect, just as in relation to those that are directly participating on the streets, for there to be arrests and charging and prosecution,” said Starmer.
Doubling Down
Far from being deterred by the criticism, Musk dug in with his online antics, personally contributing to a spread of misinformation and conspiracy that has been at the heart of a national crisis in the UK.
Musk appeared to spread a debunked claim popularized by conspiracy theorists and pseudo-populist opportunists like Nigel Farage that Keir Starmer employs “two-tier” policing, dealing with right-wing protests more forcefully than left-wing ones.
Cheap Shots at the UK’s Prime Minister
Musk continued to amp up the anti-Starmer sentiment, taking his criticisms of the British government to some bizarre fantasies.
On X, he shared a video of a police officer arresting someone for inciting violence on Facebook. Musk commented: “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?” The owner of X also posted a picture of a man in an electric chair with the caption: “In 2030 for making a Facebook comment that the UK government didn’t like.”
Subtly, or Not-So-Subtly, Empowering Hate
Embracing this “Two Tier Kier” taunt, a new face for an old far-right tactic to try and rally support by feigning victimhood, was not the only way Musk placed himself on the side of the racist rioters in the UK debate.
He also attacked the UK’s director of public prosecutions Stephen Parkinson online, branding him “woke stasi” after he made a public promise to prosecute those who post or report materials on social media that include racial hatred and incitement to violence.
UK Police Respond to Musk’s Claims
Musk further amplified this idea that Starmer’s police favor some communities over others with the hashtag #TwoTierKeir.
London Met Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said this claim was “complete nonsense.” Musk’s “free speech absolutist” stance has lent a lot of publicity to racist figures in the UK’s cultural landscape and fanned the flames of the riots.
Disinformation Puts Law Enforcement at Risk
Sir Mark pointed out that spreading false information like the police favoring minorities over protestors puts officers at risk.
Rowley said: “We operate independently under the law without fear or favor. The serious voices who echo [accusations of violence] are of more concern to me because the risk is they legitimize the violence that the officers I’m sending out will face on the streets… they are putting them at risk.”
Both a Symptom and the Cause
The violence across the UK can be labeled as protests for all those who wish to justify them, but there’s no real ideology behind these riots. People were waiting for an excuse for violence, so they capitalized on the tragic deaths of three young girls to have one.
Musk’s online comments could be said to be similarly cashing in on tragedy to push his own personal, political agenda. Social media is at the heart of this. It’s both symptomatic of a dangerous tribalism that will happily ignore the truth to push an agenda, and it is a causal factor, providing fertile ground for rampant misinformation to spread and radicalize those who don’t know better into acts of violence. People with the reach and influence that Musk has need to be more responsible with what they say online. The consequences of not doing so are very real, very dangerous and very tragic.
Platforming Racist Figures
Thanks to Musk, high-profile hatemongers have a bigger platform than ever to spread the type of racist disinformation that ignited these riots.
For example, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, commonly known as Tommy Robinson, was banned from X in 2018. Musk restored his account last year and has since interacted with Yaxley-Lennon’s posts about the widespread violence in the streets.
Other Government Officials Have Hit Back
While Starmer, the person Musk is directing his vitriol toward, has not even acknowledged his adversary by name, other politicians have felt the need to comment on the billionaire’s behavior.
Justice minister Heidi Alexander said: We have got police officers being seriously injured on our streets. People are looting buildings. They’re setting buildings alight, and for someone who has a big platform, a large following, to be exercising that power in such an irresponsible way, I think is actually pretty unconscionable.”
Calls to Keep Musk Out of Britain
After spreading so much harmful misinformation and false accusations to the British government, its people are split as to whether they want him on the island at all.
British commentator and author Nels Abbey, called for a UK travel ban on Musk. Abbey said other celebrities have been banned for less severe mishaps than “winking towards a civil war in our country.” Meanwhile, two Members of Parliament have told a British publication, Politico, that they want Musk to appear before them to answer for his behavior personally.
Bigger Problems for the PM
Sir Keir Starmer did not directly respond to Musk’s bait, with more urgent issues on his plate.
After he visited Southport, he was quick to condemn the riots. Starmer said: “This is something no one would have ever wanted to see and we need to be calling it out for what it is. It is not protest. It is violent disorder and needs to be treated as such, as criminal activity.”
Arrests for Online Incitement of Violence
While Musk remains without consequence after his comments on the riots, Brits who have espoused similar rhetoric have not been so lucky.
A 20-year-old man is among hundreds who have been arrested and convicted of playing his role in instigating the riots throughout the country both in-person and online. DCI Sarah Robinson said: “The message is: you haven’t got away with it. We can identify you and we will arrest you, you will be arrested and you will be put before the courts.”
Moving Forward Without Musk
There have been over 19 counterprotests to push back against the racist riots that scourged the UK.
Many have banded together to clean up the mess that the rioters left. In the wake of the riots, the Labor Party’s chief whip, Alan Campbell, urged politicians not to fall into fighting with people like Musk on social media. Campbell said: “What is happening is not a matter for debate, it is an issue of crime and disorder.”
