AN ex-police chief has said that some violence during the far-right riots seen across England and Northern Ireland has “crossed the line into terrorism”.
Neil Basu, who was the head of counter-terrorism policing between 2018 and 2021, said he hoped his successors are “looking at that very closely”.
He told the BBC: “I think we have seen serious acts of violence designed to cause terror to a section of our community."
Basu added that “people should look very carefully” at the legal definition of terrorism amid the far-right unrest and that many have been triggered by “lies spread through social media”.
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“We need to do something about that,” he said – including appealing to advertisers to cut funding if responsibility isn’t exercised.
Social media has come under intense scrutiny from politicians and journalists in the past week, and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday: “You can’t just have the armchair thuggery or the people being able to incite and organise violence and also not face consequences for this.”
Elon Musk, boss of Twitter/X, has faced criticism from Downing Street after the billionaire posted “civil war is inevitable” to the platform on Sunday.
Journalists have also examined social media’s role in violent disorder over recent weeks, which has been framed by Tommy Robinson (below), the former English Defence League leader whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as a protest against the murder of three children in Southport, Merseyside.
The far-right figure has been accused of inciting the riots from a five star resort in Cyprus.
Robinson was handed back his Twitter/X account last November by the social media firm’s billionaire owner Elon Musk.
Basu took aim at Robinson and said gaps in the law need to be fulled to stop him from “glorifying and creating violence from his sunbed in the Mediterranean”.
“Yaxley-Lennon knows well he’s in the full glare of policing, counter-terrorism policing, and the security service,” he added.
“If he is not crossing a legal threshold, then the government and society need to consider if that threshold is in the wrong place.”
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