Liverpool crash: Far-right were 'frothing at the mouth'
Right-wing agitators spread misinformation about the ethnicity of a man who drove a car into football fans in Liverpool on Sunday night, which was quickly countered by police confirming the perpetrator was white. Why did this happen, and what does it tell us about the state of the UK?
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In brief…
- Dozens of people have been injured after a car drove into football fans celebrating in Liverpool after a Premier League win.
- Police revealed the suspect was a 53-year-old white man within hours, compared to the three-day delay in naming the Southport attacker, to prevent misinformation and riots like those after Southport.
- The News Agents say far-right groups were hoping for another Islamic extremist narrative and were "frothing at the mouth" waiting for details, then became "disappointed" when it wasn't what they wanted.
What’s the story?
The man who injured dozens during the weekend victory parade in Liverpool was a 53-year-old white man.
But right-wing agitators didn't wait to find that out before sharing misinformation about the perpetrator's ethnicty on social media.
Once his nationality was made public by Merseyside Police, much of the online conversation turned to the speed with which his white identity was made public, in stark contrast to the long wait in 2024 for the public to learn about the identity of the person who carried out the shocking Southport murders.
“It is hard to exaggerate just how exceptional it is for that detail to be given so quickly about an incident,” Jon Sopel explains on The News Agents.
“The police seem to have learned their lesson from what happened in Southport and the riots that ensued.”
The summer of 2024 was marred, not only by the killing of young girls killed at a Taylor Swift dance class, but also the spate of anti-Muslim riots that broke out across the UK. British thugs attempted to burn down hotels where asylum seekers were housed, and committed violent attacks against migrants and religious buildings.
Why did police release details about the suspect so quickly?
Andy Hughes, LBC’s Crime Correspondent, says it’s “no coincidence” that Merseyside Police’s decision to release the ethnicity of the suspect came just weeks after a report about the handling of the Southport attack. “All the criticism in that report was about the communications,” he tells The News Agents.
It was three days before police named Axel Rudakubana as the suspect in the Southport case, with reporting restrictions lifted due to the misinformation and riots that were spreading.
Comparatively, it was mere hours before the public were told the suspect in the Liverpool crash was a white man as police tried to prevent more online speculation, and any repeat of the race riots that followed the Southport attack.
“Some members of the far-right - the same people who inspired the Southport riots - were frothing at the mouth. They were waiting for this information to come out” says Andy Hughes.
“When the information wasn't what they wanted it to be, they still tried to deny it. They said, ‘this is a PR campaign’, so even though the facts were there, they still weren't having it.”
Hughes says that some senior members of the police force, including Neil Basu, former Head of Counter Terrorism in the UK and Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, have been pushing for suspects’ identities in cases such as these to be released to the public sooner rather than later in an effort to “nip it in the bud” and stop speculation.
“You won't speak to a police officer who thinks that this wasn't the right thing to do,” he adds.
“They all say that by doing this, they have prevented serious disorder. They say there's absolutely no doubt about it that there would have been riots if this was allowed to linger and people allowed to speculate.”
Now, Hughes says, the question becomes whether the police have “created a problem for themselves” by setting a precedent.
What’s The News Agents’ take?
That police felt compelled to release the suspect’s identity so soon is itself “disturbing,” Lewis Goodall says.
“Merseyside police have obviously taken the calculation that Britain, at any given time in 2025, is one wrong move, is one moment away from racial riots.”
He partly blames Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) for the misinformation spreading in the aftermath of such attacks, observing how far-right tropes on the platform have become “normalised” and even “mainstream”.
After scenes from the Liverpool crash were posted on X, Jon noticed people on the far-right posting on the platform hopeful that the attacker was an Islamic extremist.
When police quickly announced that wasn’t the case, they were “faintly disappointed,” he says.
“It's just bizarre, the hope that this will prove their narrative, as if they’re thinking ‘we can have another Southport - happy days’.
As rumours swirled and police quickly debunked false claims about the suspect’s identity, the far-right moved on to complain about two-tier policing - questioning why police released the identity of a white suspect so soon but held back the Southport attacker’s identity for days.
This, Lewis says, is deeply ironic.
“Yes, they had a different standard this time, they did something different than in Southport.
“Why? Because of people like them, because of what happened in Southport, because people like them fanned the flames of racial and cultural division, nearly entirely on the basis of lies and misinformation, that it resulted in violence which lasted for days.”
“So if there is two tier policing in Britain, or if there is a different standard, it's because of them. They have created the different standard.”