All of the far-right’s self-owns amid riots over Southport stabbing

The UK far-right rioted across the country this week, off the back of misinformation surrounding a fatal stabbing at a Taylor Swift dance event in Southport on Monday which left three young girls dead.

Conspiracies surrounded the name of the 17-year-old male suspect and why his identity couldn’t be revealed – with even Reform UK leader Nigel Farage questioning “whether the truth is being withheld from us” when it came to the teenager’s background – when in reality it was due to reporting restrictions and UK law granting those in court under 18 the right to automatic anonymity.

When a judge decided to lift these restrictions on Thursday, the suspect was named as 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana – not “Ali Al-Shakati” as social media rumours suggested.

Similarly, Rudakubana is not a Muslim (neighbours described him as a “quiet choir boy”), nor is he an immigrant (he was born in Cardiff before his family moved to Banks in Lancashire), in two other examples of misinformation tapping into far-right talking points.

Now, as the overwhelming majority of the British public look for lighter moments amid the violence and disorder (such as the “heartwarming” moment Southport residents came together to fix a damaged brick wall of the local mosque), Twitter/X users have also indulged in some schadenfreude and ridicule where far-right individuals ended up embarrassing themselves.

We’ve rounded them all up here for you, below.

The man hit in the head and groin with a brick from his own side

Starting off with the most viral video from the week’s riots, one cocky individual was seen strutting over to riot police, only to shortly receive a brick to the back of the head from fellow thugs.

Except it didn’t end there, because as he retreated back to the crowd, placing a hand on his head to check for blood, another brick was lobbed right into his nether region, prompting him to double over in pain as he walked away.

The man bitten in the bum by a police dog

Though not long after this video did the rounds online, footage was captured of a man confronting police and confidently telling them “I pay your wages”, only to be swiftly humbled by a police dog biting his backside when he ignored an officer’s requests to get back.

The Doncaster “protest”… which only had one person turn up

In a beautiful rejection of the far-right from Doncaster, the Doncaster Free Pressreported on Saturday that a protest in “solidarity with Southport”, titled “Enough is Enough” and described by the outlet as being “anti-immigration”, had a grand total of just one protester showing up to make their feelings known.

Yes, you read that right – one.

The lone male individual is quoted as saying: “Well, here we are, lads. Quarter past two, Sir Nigel Gresley Square, there’s me, two coppers who look bored, there’s a van there. They looked bored.

“You’re all a set of f***ing w******, every one of you. Where are you? F***ing a***holes.”

Diddums.

The Blackpool mob… which gathered on the same day as a punk festival

Thugs arguably chose the worst possible day to hit the streets in Blackpool, as it turned out thousands of anti-fascist punk rockers were in town for Rebellion Festival and were more than happy to make their feelings known.

The woman who claimed “too many people” sunk the Titanic in a bizarre immigration analogy

Some right and far-right individuals making remarks about immigration resort to appalling descriptions to get their point across (see Katie Hopkins’ infamous “cockroaches” column and former home secretary Suella Braverman talking of an “invasion”), but one woman involved in a protest this week used the sinking of the Titanic to make a very flawed argument.

“When we’ve got the Titanic, and they filled it with too many people, what happened? It sunk, and that’s what happening to it now. We’re sinking,” the protester, draped in the Union Jack, is filmed saying.

You’d think someone with their country’s flag wrapped around them would know enough basic history to recall that the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg, but perhaps that’s asking too much.

The woman who shared a ‘no more mosques’ graphic – featuring Brighton’s Royal Pavilion

Describing herself as an “English British patriot”, one Twitter account known only as ‘Queen Natalie’ shared an inflammatory graphic in which it encouraged viewers to “share if you agree” that there should be “no more mosques”.

The only problem is, is that the photo of a ‘mosque’ used in the image to illustrate the argument isn’t even a mosque, but rather Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, which Brighton and Hove Museums describe as being “constructed as the seaside pleasure palace of King George IV”.

If only she checked the facts…

Embarrassing scenes all round, really.

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