Did Russian disinformation fuel the Southport protests?

In the wake of a week of violent far-right protests, several British news sites have suggested that Russian-linked disinformation was behind riots in Southport that then spread across England. At least five demonstrations took place this week after three children were stabbed to death in Southport on Monday.

British politicians and officials have echoed these claims, blaming the protests and violence on social media and disinformation. Southport’s MP said the unrest emerged from “social media lies” and “propaganda.” The former head of MI6 told the Telegraph that a site seeding a false claim about the perpetrator’s identity was an example of Vladimir Putin’s “grey warfare”.

But what do we know for sure about the role of Russian disinformation in fuelling protests and violence?

The short answer is not very much (at least not yet). However, characterising these protests as the work of external agitators spreading lies on social media obscures a more complex and troubling reality.

On Thursday, the Daily Mail’s front page read “Russia linked to fake news that sparked mosque riot,” referring to its analysis of a suspicious news site called Channel3 Now, which published a false story about the Southport stabbings. Channel3 Now falsely claimed the suspect was an asylum seeker called Ali Al Shakati, who was “on MI6’s watchlist” – a claim that quickly spread through social media networks, promoting anti-Islam and anti-migrant views. In reality, the accused is Axel Rudakubana, a British-born 17-year-old from Cardiff.

While the channel was pushing disinformation, the links to Russia are far less clear.

Channel3 Now’s Youtube channel started life as a Russian channel eleven years ago which had previously posted videos of Russian rally cars. The last such video was published more than a decade ago. The Daily Mail reported that drivers featured in the videos had connections to Russia’s defence and technology industries – a link perhaps, but a tenuous one.

The Youtube channel had not posted Russian-language content for 11 years, and could have been bought and repurposed by unknown actors. Channel3 News’ website was created in the summer of 2023, and one of four Facebook pages that use the same name and branding was repurposed twice – once in 2023 and again in May 2024, when it became “Channel3 Now”. This page’s administrators are based in Pakistan and the United States.

The website itself employs a US-based company that cloaks IP addresses – a common tactic used by online actors trying to conceal their identities.

The Daily Mail reported that Russian state media picked up and spread the claim that the perpetrator was an undocumented migrant across its social media sites. But so did various British commentators.

This is not to say that Russian or other state actors didn’t plant the inflammatory false story, only that the evidence underpinning current claims is weak. Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation expert, wrote that his analysis reveals “clear attempts to exploit the tragic incident”, a phenomena that often occurs in the wake of shocking violence. But for now at least, the question of who runs Channel3 News remains unanswered.

Did this particular piece of disinformation spark protests and violence?

Again, it isn’t clear. Definitively proving what causes people to come out to protests or what causes them to engage in violence is far from an exact science.

TBIJ attended Wednesday’s “Enough is Enough” protest outside Downing Street and spoke to dozens of people about what brought them to the demonstration, what they hoped to achieve, whether they were motivated by false information about the identity of the attacker, and where they looked for trustworthy news.

Protesters had plenty of different motivations and political beliefs, but there were clear common threads. Most incorrectly blamed illegal migration for the murders in Southport and knife crime across the UK more broadly. Chants of “Stop the boats” and “Save our kids” were common. Even those who didn’t comment on the Southport suspect’s identity told TBIJ they believed reducing migration would reduce knife crime, a claim that is not supported by credible research.

But false narratives about migration were in circulation long before the tragedy in Southport. While bad actors can fan the flames, TBIJ’s media monitoring project shows that false or misleading narratives often gain traction through domestic influencers, with or without the help of this disinformation. Almost everyone who spoke to TBIJ at the protest mentioned the name Tommy Robinson – not a single person mentioned the name Ali Al Shakati.

When discussing the suspect, a small number of protesters correctly identified him as a British-born teenager, but focused their criticism on the fact that the teenager’s parents had immigrated to the UK from Rwanda.

Only a small number of people told TBIJ that they believed the attacker was Muslim. Some protesters who acknowledged the suspect was not Muslim nevertheless expressed Islamophobic and racist views. One woman said she believed migrants were trying to force British people to practise Islam, and one protester repeatedly referred to migrants who arrive in boats as “cockroaches.”

Those who agreed to interviews generally showed their faces and took ownership of their views. Many others did not. There was a notable presence of men in suits wearing masks that obscured their faces. They joined in angrily and energetically with anti-migrant chants but stayed slightly apart from the crowd.

As the evening wore on, fights erupted between groups of protesters and the police.

Blaming political violence on outside agitators is a convenient narrative, but one that may obscure a more troubling reality – that migrants have been so effectively scapegoated online and offline that it takes very little to ignite popular anger.

Bad actors – including foreign governments trying to undermine faith in institutions and national cohesion – will undoubtedly seek to capitalise on national tragedies. In this case, some appear to have played a role in seeding a harmful false narrative. But who these actors are, and what real-world impact they really had, remains an open question. Evidence that Russian disinformation caused violence and unrest across the UK is still weak at best.