Good morning. Ten years after the murder of the MP Jo Cox by a rightwing extremist in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, her sister Kim Leadbeater, now herself a MP, issued a clear and urgent summons.
In an interview on our Today in Focus podcast , she proposed that political hatred in Britain is worse now than at the time of her sister’s killing, but insisted “those voices who are sowing the division are in the minority.”
“They are very loud. But the rest of us then have got a duty to drown them out and tell the good stories of this country,” she said.
But what if one of those loud voices belongs to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who owns one of the largest social media platforms, reinstated Britain’s foremost far-right agitator on to it and amplifies a highly networked transnational far-right movement to his 240 million followers?
The start of the week was dominated by debate about keeping children safe around social media – today I want to talk about another online harm that is fomenting offline violence and contributing to a feeling and a reality that British streets are hostile, particularly for people of colour.
I discussed all of this with political correspondent Ben Quinn , who has reported on the far right across the UK for more than a decade. Before that, the headlines.
Five big stories UK news | A Russian warship fired warning shots within a few hundred metres of a British pleasure yacht sailing across the Channel amid a period of heightened tensions between London and Moscow.
UK politics | The Lib Dems will urge Andy Burnham to end Labour’s “torpor and timidity” towards the EU as they call for the UK to rejoin the single market, in a notable strengthening of their own position.
Middle East | Iran’s top diplomat has said a peace deal with the US would require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, as concern grows that Israel could undermine diplomatic efforts to finally end the Middle East war.
Media | A BBC presenter lauded by the corporation for his appeal to young male audiences has a history of making abusive and misogynistic remarks about women, whom he has variously called “slags”, “sluts”, “psychos” and “bitches”, the Guardian can reveal .
US news | Joe Biden’s decision to seek a second term was “ a terrible mistake ” that cost Democrats the presidency and may have permanently damaged his legacy, Hillary Clinton has declared.
In depth: ‘Planning is being done quite openly and explicitly’ The racist disorder on the streets of Belfast, Glasgow, Southampton and elsewhere followed what is now a familiar pattern, says Ben. They can be described as “trigger events” and they’re transnational: the far right take a tragedy such as the death of Henry Nowak or the stabbing of Stephen Ogilvie , attach it to an existing narrative about immigration, usually disregarding the specific facts of each case, and call for offline protest. In Belfast, this resulted in ethnic minority families being burnt out of their homes.
We also saw it in the race riots that followed the Southport killings in the summer of 2024, which were similarly fuelled by online misinformation. In the space of just two years, the mechanics have changed significantly, Ben tells me, with far-right organising happening in plainer sight than ever.
“After Southport, far-right activists gathered and planned in private on Telegram, then X was used to amplify those plans. Facebook was used for a different purpose , creating astroturfing initiatives and meetings to get local communities involved in far-right activity.”
“After the sentencing of Henry Novak’s killer, planning is being done quite openly and explicitly on X and discussions are taking place there.”
This was amplified by Musk himself, who shared details of planned demonstrations across Britain and Northern Ireland , which were seized on by rightwing politicians elsewhere in Europe.
Likewise, we see Musk and others seizing on events in Europe on a fairly regular basis, though they don’t appear to have sparked the same sort of unrest. An event that gets shared online again and again, says Ben, even though it was two years ago – is the mass stabbing at a rightwing demonstration in the German city of Mannheim, in which a police officer died and five others were injured by an Afghan national.
It’s impossible to overestimate Musk’s impact on what X users regularly see on their feeds. Guardian analysis earlier this year found that he has, at times, posted almost daily about alleged threats to the white race. And there are countless other examples of his influence on political activity in the UK, a country he does not live in nor hold any elected role in, such as endorsing and promoting politicians like Rupert Lowe, who called for “millions” of deportations after the Belfast stabbing.
Ben also points to the proliferation of AI-generated images, videos and songs deliberately designed to inflame local anger, such as the multitude of memes generated after the police released the harrowing bodycam footage of Nowak’s arrest, as well as more generalised fakery of “migrant gangs” of men assaulting white women.
TikTok is also emerging as a platform to keep an eye on. “When images or footage from attacks are shared there,” says Ben, “it marks a moment when something crosses over into a place for large numbers of folks who are not necessarily politically engaged see it.”
***
The piggyback effect
The riots in Belfast were grim enough, but they could have been worse, Ben suggests, had a figure like Tommy Robinson attended in person rather than encouraging from the social media sidelines.
“I don’t think the British far right quite understood the Northern Irish dynamics,” he says, for example describing the man who fought off Ogilvie’s attacker with an Irish hurling stick as a British patriot.
He also notes many of the long list of proposed protest assembly points pushed by Robinson – who was meeting Elon Musk’s father at a luxury hotel in Moscow as he urged his supporters on to British streets – failed to materialise. “The numbers are not really there unless it’s something that Robinson spends months organising, like the Unite the Kingdom rallies.”
What the far right find more effective offline is to “piggyback on an authentic local event”, Ben explains, like the protests against the Bell Hotel in Epping last year, after an asylum seeker who was living there sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
“Those protests grew bigger because there was buy-in from many local people, as well as Reform councillors and extreme far-right characters.”
***
The normalisation of hate speech
This highly networked online activity also has consequences for the language we use – and that in turn, as I wrote about last week , matters for how safe people from minority communities feel.
At these protests, Ben has witnessed how “the language and slogans people use jump from X to the real world”.
“A phrase like ‘re-migration’ was beyond the pale a few years ago,” says Ben. The explicitly racist concept advocates for the mass expulsion of non-white residents, regardless of nationality. “It is now used by Tommy Robinson on a routine basis. It’s something that may, in time, make its way into mainstream conservative discourse.”
In multitude ways, on X in particular, hate speech is becoming normalised. Earlier this week, the Guardian reported that the social inclusion thinktank British Future is accusing X of giving racists “impunity” after the platform refused to bar posts using the N-word and P-word.
***
Deplatforming division
After the racist riots in Belfast, Keir Starmer vowed to crack down on platforms fuelling division.
We know that ministers plan to amend the Online Safety Act to require social media firms act faster to remove inflammatory content when off-line violence erupts, but this won’t take effect until mid-July at the earliest. In the meantime, the government is leaving any official reprimand of X to Ofcom.
You’d be forgiven for wondering if it’s credible that effective regulation of the far right is going to come from an organisation whose recently departed chair, Michael Grade, argues that the voice of “the white majority” has not been heard properly in recent times. Nevertheless, Dr Avaes Mohammad, a researcher with British Future who worked on their X project, argues that – while it may seem a thankless task – there is merit in continuing to report offensive posts and informing Ofcom when they’re not taken down. “As citizens, we’re all capable of gathering data.”
Elsewhere, I heard a powerful argument for collective action from Pat Younge, media consultant and former chief creative officer of BBC Television Production, who called on Starmer to regulate social media platforms as we do broadcasters and other news organisations.
On an episode of the podcast Over the Top, Under the Radar, Younge said: “Starmer needs to grow a pair – we need to act and the public will be with him. Because this isn’t free speech, it’s an abuse of power and that’s what we need to treat it as.” But it’s too easy to personalise this around Starmer’s weakness, he added: “Where are the trade unions? Where is civic society? Our institutions are being hollowed out and we need organisations to take a stand.”
What else we’ve been reading This yarn of a long read by Tobias Jones is a fascinating tale involving funerals, arrests and divorces; football ultras , a lottery winner, and 1970s terrorist group the Red Brigades. One to enjoy with our morning coffee. Michael Segalov, newsletters team
Jessica Murray meets three “stubborn northern working mums” took on the developers and helped push through the biggest ever overhaul of the archaic leasehold system . Libby
Into free holidays and cheap fizzy wine ? Zoe Williams has you (OK, us) covered. She writes about discovering a secret scheme that lets you buy tax-free plonk while visiting France … for free. Bon voyage, mon ami! Michael
World Cup 2026 On the pitch
France 3-1 Senegal | A spluttering first-half performance gave way to a second period characterised by a combination of physical intensity and technical ability, with a record-breaking double for Kylian Mbappé.
Argentina 3-0 Algeria | Lionel Messi’s splendid hat-trick secures thumping victory over Algeria and ties him with Germany’s Miroslav Klose as the World Cup’s all-time leading goal scorer.
The best of the rest | Erling Haaland punished Iraq with a brace of goals against the Group I underdog, while in Miami Uruguay’s Maximiliano Araújo scored a late equaliser as they battled back to secure a 1-1 draw with Saudi Arabia.
Off the pitch
You’re fired | Tunisia confirm Hervé Renard as their new manager , having sacked Sabri Lamouchi after just one World Cup match, a 5-1 drubbing by Sweden.
Picture perfect | After going viral with his bizarre official competition portrait, maverick Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa defends the unconventional image .
Dream or nightmare? | Meet the football fans being paid £37,000 to watch every World Cup match from inside a glass box in the heart of New York’s Times Square.
Today’s fixtures
• Portugal v DR Congo, 6pm BST on BBC
• England v Croatia, 9pm BST on ITV
• Ghana v Panama, 12am BST on ITV
• Uzbekistan v Colombia, 3am BST on BBC
The front pages “Russian warship opens fire in the Channel to warn off British yacht”, is the Guardian ’s front page today.
The development dominates most titles, with the Telegraph running “Russian warship fires shots in Channel”, the Times says “Russian warship fires at yacht in the Channel”, and the i Paper has “Retired UK couple reveal ‘scary’ clash in Channel with Russian warship”. The Express says “Putin’s warship opens fire” the Mail , similarly, has “Putin opens fire in the Channel” and the Sun ’s take is “Vlad fires on Brit OAPs in Channel”.
Elsewhere, the FT leads with “SpaceX races past Amazon as fifth most valuable group”, the Mirror has “It’s not too late for Labour”, and Metro ahead of England’s World Cup match against Croatia says “Here we owe!”.
Today in Focus: The Latest Can Trump be convinced to back Ukraine?
Donald Trump has urged Russia to ‘make a deal’ with Ukraine as the leaders of G7 countries meet on Tuesday and try to put the conflict back at the top of the agenda. European leaders are hoping to capture Trump’s attention for long enough to speak to him about Ukraine, with the US president’s focus more on the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Erling Haaland punished Iraq with a brace of goals against the Group I underdog, while in Miami Uruguay’s Maximiliano Araújo scored a late equaliser as they battled back to secure a 1-1 draw with Saudi Arabia. – watch the full episode here .
Cartoon of the day | Rebecca Hendin The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Children in the Netherlands are some of the most healthy and happy kids in the world, and it may all be because of a century-old walking tradition.
Avondvierdaagse (which literally translates to “four-day evening walk”) is a Dutch walking festival where children, parents and teachers embark on a 5-10km excursion. Come rain or shine, approximately and half a million people take part every year in 700 locations across the Netherlands.
The extended walk allows children to connect with their community and helps build resilience. “I like that it’s something that happens each year and you get exercise out of it,” says Ansel Howard, 13. “It’s something that people have been doing for a long time and that you can do with friends and family and just enjoy.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
Quick crossword
Cryptic crossword
Wordiply