Hours after a fatal knife attack occurred in the northern English town of Southport in July last year, Andrew McIntyre started a Telegram channel called Southport Wake Up. Amid posts filled with anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant abuse, he urged people to take to the streets, directed them to mosques and called for “war”.
Mr McIntyre, 39, took part in two of several riots that rocked Britain last summer. declared He was sentenced to seven years in prison last Monday.
He pleaded guilty to encouraging a violent riot and criminal activity and possessing a knife. The day after the conviction, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk lamented McIntyre’s sentence in a post on his social media platform “The person who handed down that sentence deserves prison himself.”
Joe Mulhall, head of research at Britain’s Hope Not Hate, said: “In recent months, it has been extremely interesting to draw attention to just how extreme the figures Mr Musk has championed and associated with in Europe and the UK are.” I think it’s important,” he said. An activist group that studies extremism, especially the far right.
Mr Musk has used his platform to promote Tommy Robinson, Britain’s most famous far-right extremist, but the tech billionaire has also spoken out in support of lesser-known figures such as Mr McIntyre. I’m raising it. At the time, Mulhall said, Musk expressed support for neo-Nazis who were members of fascist groups.
Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
The summer riots followed an attack on July 29 in which a knife-wielding assailant killed three girls and injured several others at a dance class in Southport. Misinformation quickly spread on social media that the suspect, later identified as Axel Rudakbana, was actually a Welsh-born Syrian asylum seeker who arrived in a small boat.
According to a study conducted by Hope Not Hate. Mr McIntyre used his Telegram account to call for violence within hours of the Southport attack, and later created a TikTok account and a Telegram channel to promote it, calling the latter the “Southport Wakeup,” the complaint said. He shared a post under a false name on a Telegram channel encouraging a demonstration on St Luke’s Road in Southport, near the scene of the knife attack, the next day, and drew a red circle around a mosque on that road. He added the message: “The time for war has come.”
On July 30, a mob attacked the mosque McIntyre was referring to, injuring dozens of police officers. Days of unrest rocked Britain over the next week, with rioters clashing with police, setting cars on fire, storming mosques and looting businesses.
Hope Not Hate then compiled various accounts run by Mr. McIntyre on social media and messaging platforms, and on August 3, he declared “Mosques must be burnt,” and on August 6. found a post by him calling for his murder. It targeted all Jews, Muslims, and blacks, adding, “White power.”
His extremism had been widespread for years before the uprising. McIntyre posted a selfie of himself giving a Nazi salute in July 2022, and after his arrest, police found a copy of Hitler’s political manifesto, Mein Kampf, in his home.
Merseyside Police, which oversees policing in the Liverpool area, said Mr McIntyre’s messages on Telegram encouraged others to take part in violent riots and cause crime in Southport. Police said in a statement that the suspect had also made other “unsuccessful attempts to incite disorder at other locations.”
Police said Mr McIntyre took part in riots in Southport on July 30 and Liverpool on August 3, and was in possession of a knife when he was arrested on August 8.
Detective Inspector Paula Jones, of Merseyside Police, said Mr McIntyre used social media to encourage people to travel to Southport and Liverpool to commit crimes and was instrumental in coordinating the July 30 riots. He said he played a role.
McIntyre’s social media footprint included graphic threats of rape and violence against other users. “This is also a case study that helps us understand the hypocrisy at the heart of Mr. Musk when discussing the UK,” Mulhall said. “While Musk deplores the abuse of women by grooming gangs, he also defends the right of individuals to use social media to send rape and death threats to women.”
Far-right monitoring groups say Mr Musk’s decision to reinstate previously banned accounts of members of the British far-right, including Mr Robinson, has significantly increased their profile and contributed to the spread of extremist ideology. . (Mr. Robinson is currently in jail for contempt of court, but his account on X remains active, with supporters posting on his behalf.)
Sophia Gaston, a UK policy analyst and visiting fellow at King’s College London, said Mr Musk’s focus on Britain was consistent with widespread scrutiny of the country by the MAGA movement. Mr Musk has portrayed himself as a champion of free speech and has criticized the UK government and authorities’ efforts to combat hate speech and violent rhetoric.
“But there’s a difference between amplifying voices outside the political mainstream and shining a spotlight on people who have been convicted of criminal offenses,” Gaston said. “For McIntyre, these are not spurious laws of political correctness that are open to interpretation. These are laws of public disorder and violence that are essential to protecting life and property.”