Britain’s far right has long sought to exploit moments of tension, but a disturbing new analysis suggests that much of the online amplification surrounding recent disorder is coming from far beyond Britain’s shores.
An analysis of posts on Elon Musk’s X about the June disturbances in Belfast and Southampton found that more than half of the accounts generating significant engagement were based outside the UK. Of 8,672 accounts whose combined posts about the incidents received more than 1,000 views, only 45.3% were identified as being in Britain.
The United States accounted for 16.8% of the accounts, Ireland for 4.5%, while approximately a quarter came from elsewhere in Europe.
The figures matter because these were not simply overseas observers commenting on British events. Many were actively promoting narratives about immigration, race and social collapse, exploiting genuine tragedies to inflame hostility towards minorities and asylum seekers.
Almost 13,000 of approximately 43,000 posts analysed were racist or anti-immigration. Nearly one in ten posts relating to Belfast contained calls for violence, vigilantism or paramilitary action.
That is not legitimate political debate. It is the digital equivalent of throwing petrol onto a fire.
Seven of the 12 most-read posts about Belfast and Southampton came from US-based accounts, including Elon Musk himself and prominent American right-wing commentators. Another was linked to North America.
One particularly revealing example came from the account @EndWokeness, which has millions of followers. It posted an image connected to the Belfast violence and attracted more than 16 million views. The account has previously been criticised for amplifying false claims about the 2024 Southport murders.
US influencer Benny Johnson also used the Southampton case to attack the supposed silence of the American and British media, while other accounts portrayed individual crimes as evidence of a wider racial or civilisational conflict.
The objective is depressingly familiar: take an individual tragedy, strip away context, attach it to immigration or race and then repeat the resulting outrage millions of times.
Dr. Julia Ebner of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Oxford University described events such as Belfast and Southampton as becoming “strategic events” for far-right actors. The purpose, she argued, is not simply to comment on Britain but to portray the country as evidence of western social collapse while strengthening far-right politics internationally.
That should concern anyone who values democratic debate.
Britain’s problems are real enough without importing an industrial-scale outrage machine from overseas. Social media allows people who have never visited Belfast, Southampton or the communities affected by the violence to present themselves as authorities on what Britain supposedly needs.
And the algorithms reward them.
The most inflammatory claim travels further than the sober explanation. The shocking photograph beats the full video. The rumour beats the correction. The accusation of conspiracy beats the facts.
There is nothing accidental about this.
Foreign far-right activists have discovered that British disorder can become profitable political content. Every riot becomes an opportunity. Every crime becomes ammunition. Every racial confrontation can be turned into another reason to demand more extreme politics.
Britain should not allow its communities to become props in an international far-right propaganda war.
The lesson from Belfast and Southampton is not that Britain is collapsing. It is that those who want Britain to believe it is collapsing are becoming increasingly sophisticated at manufacturing the appearance of chaos.
And they are not necessarily doing it from Britain.
