Stochastic Terrorism and the British Far-Right

06/Aug/24

Stochastic Terrorism and the British Far-Right: My Analysis

Now for those of you have never had the displeasure of bring aware of this cunt, meet Nigel Farage. Former leader of UKIP, current leader of Reform UK Ltd., and Member of Parliament for Clacton.

He's probably most well known over here either for being a far-right grifter, or for getting milkshakes chucked in his face wherever he goes and selling cameos of him saying egregious shit like 'Up the RA' and:

"Sigma, sigma spider climbed up the skibidi spout — and that spider is you, top sigma James — yes it is, this is Nigel Farage wishing you a big chungus congratulations for being the top G skibidi alpha male! We will promise to hawk tuah on your bussy as it claps, and this message James, is sponsored by Sam, Mathey, Finn, and Moe Lester: Guys, you sound like a great group."

And for those of you who have the pleasure of not living in 2020s England, this is what the streets of plenty of our towns and cities have looked like recently:

Far-Right rioters have emerged over the past few days, attacking police officers, looting stores, assaulting those of racial minorities and muslim faith, and utilising a spur of the moment arson campaign anywhere they can, destroying libraries, job centres, and attempting to set alight two hotels occupied by immigrants awaiting processing. These riots were triggered by an attack in Southport some days ago, in which 17 year old Axel Rudakubana is charged with the murder of 3 girls and attempted murder of 10 more in an unprovoked stabbing. Whilst the community was attempting to cope with this, rumours (of an origin I will go into a little further down) began to spread that the suspect; who legally couldn't be immediately named at the time; was an illegal immigrant, muslim, of Syrian heritage, and named 'Ali Al-Shakati' — all of which has proved false, with nobody of that name even existing as far as I can find. 2 days after the attack, at the same time as a vigil was being held, the first riot began in Southport. A police van is set alight, bricks taken from garden walls were thrown at riot officers, and the local mosque fell under attack. It has only snowballed from there.

And the link is?

Over the previous week, Farage has possibly been one of the largest propagators of misinformation and apology for these rioters. First, he sends out a statement on Twitter questioning if the 'Full truth" was bring told regarding the suspect. He later admitted today that his reasoning for this question originated from the words of Andrew Tate (Who I am sure requires little introduction) and other influencers with large followings.

In a more recent statement, he has also claimed that those rioting were doing so because of legitimate grievences and angers — perhaps true to some attendants, but surely not the ones looting, attacking, and attempting to murder, as indeed large swathes of rioters have been linked to groups such as the former EDL, splinter groups such as the North-East Infidels, and general extremist + racist ideals.

In yet another video on Twitter, he accuses the government and police forces of engaging in 'Two-Tier Policing', a talking point and conspiracy theory played by both rioters and those who seek to excuse theor behaviour, claiming that police forces are against the far-right as a movement, and disproportionately arrest and discourage their actions while showing indifference to the actions of leftist and muslim protestors and rioters.

This is where the main point of this post comes into play, the idea of Stochastic Terrorism.

Wikipedia describes it as:

"...targeted political violence that has been instigated by hostile public rhetoric which is directed at a group or an individual. Unlike incitement to terrorism, stochastic terrorism is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence.[1] A key element is the use of social media and other distributed forms of communications where the person who carries out the violence has no direct connection to the users of violent rhetoric."

And indeed, the actions of Farage can very easily be brought down to this. Spreading misinformation and vague alignment to the cause of the rioters, something that he is no stranger to with his populist and incredibly short-sighted campaign against immigration, through inflammatory propositions and language. But he is only one example I chose here. There are far more out there who are utilising these same tactic, and whom I believe should be recieving a talking to with the relevant forces...

• Richard Tice – Key to running Reform UK alongside Farage, he has perhaps been even MORE proactive in his comments on Twitter, seen by millions:


• Darren Grimes – Presenter for GB News, an alternative-news channel similar to the American FOX News, who when not sharing crappy AI visuals and crappy journalism on his technically-not-news channel, has been quick to jump along with claims of two-tier policing and the percieved dangers of immigration


• Tommy Robinson – I had no doubt this lad would end up playing his part. Founder of the EDL and well known Anti-Islam activist who's name has been chanted non-stop at these rallies, he should now be facing yet another conviction alongside his case of libel against a Syrian schoolboy, whom he falsely claimed had assaulted and abused classmates, accusations which led to attacks and death threats towards the boy. Currently on the run in Cyprus, he has been instrumental in spreading misinformation and encouraging rioters inbetween his frequent anti-islam, anti-immigration rants. I don't even think I need to share screenshots of what he's said, simply because it's hard to choose just a few examples and because there is so much to wade through. If you want to, check out his Twitter page and see for yourself.


• Elon Musk – Since his Alt-Right turn a couple years back, Musk has been spitting all sorts of crap, hell, that's why a lot of you are here on SpaceHey now. In the past day or so he has been quick to echo sentiments of two-tier policing, while accusing the British government and police of limiting free speech by arresting a man who had been showing support for and encouraging riots on Facebook using racist language. Just one of many clueless Americans trying to comment on events they have no context or understanding around judging by the replies under these posts. Even if not intentional blurring of the lines between free speech and hate speech, it is at the very minimum an uninformed and oversensationalised claim.

I'd just to close this section with a quote from a user I follow left under that tweet which I believe sums it up incredibly well (You'll notice I slightly paraphrased it a minute ago!):

"The far right are deliberately trying to blur the lines between freedom of speech and hate speech. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences."

SIDENOTE: Origins of Misinformation

As promised, here's a little explanation of how misinformation around the identity of the Southport attacker spread, and where it originates from. Well, kind of. I've been writing this for some 2 hours now, mostly due to the fact that the mobile browser version of SpaceHey is a bit dodgy. However, I'll link some better research at the bottom of the post for further reading.

Long story short, much of the false claims originate from 'Channel3Now', a Russian linked fake news channel based out of India. Original claims were that the attacker held the false Arab name we heard so much of, and was on MI6 Watchlists. This was picked up by Alt-Right influencers like Tate and other previously small accounts on Twitter, which rapidly gained traction following their outlandish claims, many of which independently expanded on claims, inventing further stories of a Syrian illegal immigrant. As I said, many groups have done brilliant jobs of tracking this misinformation and its origins, and I recommend you read into them.

My Thoughts:

Simple. Farage, Tice, and all other MPs who have acted similarly, should face repercussions. Their actions are reckless and divisive, the opposite of what is needed right now in these dire moments.

Everyone who has encouraged these riots, directly or indirectly, should face the full consequences of the law as seen reasonable.

Further investigation and action needs to be taken regarding how misinformation is spread over social media and how it is used as a tool for radicalisation.

The greatest thing we can do right now is ensure community cohesion and solidarity. For those living in England, I encourage you to sign this pledge from Hope Not Hate, and watch their newsletter. The work they are doing now and have planned for the coming months is absolutely amazing. They just surpassed 10,000 signatures, and I hope that number continues to grow:

https://secure.hopenothate.org.uk/page/152844/petition/1

SEE ALSO:

Sky News analysis of misinformation

Further false claims of a stabbing by an immigrant

Data and origins of Southport misinformation

Matthew Collins' interpretation of Farage's comments

Another amazing interpretation of Farage and Tice's words

Bloomberg: Suspected Foreign Agitators Boost UK Extremists to Inflame Riots