[n4r9]

> There is no "far right" or people being "whipped up".

The wikipedia page about the riots has 127 mentions of "far-right" [0]. From the very start there were links between the protestors and organisations like the EDL. The online misinformation was spread by far-right influencers such Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, and Andrew Tate, as well as a host of global right-wing accounts. The organisation Alliance4Europe which campaigns against online misinformation found that "non-domestic far-right groups played a significant role in inflaming tensions following the Southport murders" [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_riots

[1] https://alliance4europe.eu/the-international-far-rights-impa...

[okeuro49]

The EDL hasn't been around for years.

The "far right" narrative is to hide state failure.

Even the group "Hope not Hate" (former far-left "Searchlight" publication) admitted the "far right" narrative was a hoax. [1]

[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1933625/uk-riots-list-hoax

[n4r9]

Is that the article you meant to link? It says that a specific document was a hoax, not the entire concept of the far right.

[roenxi]

Far-right, unfortunately, is something of a trigger word suggesting Wikipedia is about to become unreliable in its coverage. As far as I can tell any suggestion that immigration levels should be low is likely to be a far-right position which means it is a very large tent. A tent that includes some undesirables and a lot of quite normal people.

There is an odd situation where apparently countries can simultaneously adopt anti-growth policies while having an infinite surplus of real resources to handle more migrants and anyone who believes otherwise is de-facto attempting to restart the Jew ovens whether they personally deny it or not. Where a more charitable view would be if a country maintains high immigration into a situation where real resources don't grow that is quite possibly leading towards a genocide. People aren't all smiles and sunshine when times get tough; it is more sensible to engineer society towards prosperity.

[n4r9]

Not so; Keir Starmer is talking about cracking down on immigration and is certainly not far-right. You veer into the far-right when you dehumanise immigrants and use terms like "cockroaches", "Muslim invasion", or "great replacement".

[roenxi]

Keir Starmer is pushing [0] pretty standard far-right conspiracy theories about how the government was running an open-borders experiment, by design, in contravention of stated policies.

> ...and is certainly not far-right.

He's quacking like a duck. Talking about open borders is fair game for being identified as a dog whistler for people who believe in the great replacement theory - particularly when it is framed as duplicitous and intentional. I'd agree that it isn't, but once Wikipedia starts breaking out "far right" that is the sort of standard that can be applied.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-migratio... - although humorously it is apparently standard practice to redact parts of speeches as political in a political speech given by a politician.

[n4r9]

Yeah I have to eat my words. Keir Starmer is a terrible example given how much he's banging on about "open border policies" and "small boats". A few tens of thousands - often of the most needy refugees - come in small boats. It's a capitulation to the far right and I reckon it's going to blow back in Labours face much as some of Blair's policies did.

I mean, look, my position is that "far right" is a meaningful concept even if it's somewhat nebulous at the edges. And as far as I can tell, Wikipedia is well justified in its mention of far right influence on the riots. And the Wikipedia page defining the concept of far right is pretty cohesive and compelling. I don't think that simply wanting low immigration makes someone far right. But immigration control is a massive point for the far right because it's a low hanging fruit. It's easy to scapegoat immigration as the principle cause of crises in housing, cost of living, and the NHS. Lots of people are tempted to point fingers at the "other" in times of insecurity.

PS Does a policy/narrative stop being far right as it becomes more popular? Maybe in an "Overton window" sense, but obviously not at a global and historical level. Mussolini becoming popular in Italy did not mean he was no longer a far right fascist.

[like_any_other]

Was the misinformation even material? The perpetrator of the Southport stabbings was the child of recent African immigrants, so I don't see how the true facts of the case would have calmed any right-wing unrest.

[n4r9]

The furore was whipped up on the basis of the perpetrator being Muslim, illegal, and an immigrant. In my opinion it fed off the residual unresolved tensions of grooming gang cases. But of course the actual perpetrator was none of these three things.

[like_any_other]

> on the basis of the perpetrator being Muslim, illegal, and an immigrant.

Let's not kid ourselves - it was on the basis of the perpetrator being non-white/non-ethnically-British. There's no shortage of the protesters being accused of racism, but now we're supposed to pretend it was about religion or following the law? That's called trying to have your cake and eat it to.

[n4r9]

You reckon the riots would still happen if the story was that the perpetrator was - let's say - an aboriginal Australian or a pygmy from New Guinea? Highly doubtful. The narrative had to align with what the far right have been spinning up for the last decade or so.