Britain’s terrorism watchdog has called for more information to be made public in the event of mass attacks, so as to reduce the risk of trust in public institutions being undermined. Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has warned of an “information vacuum,” noting that people “quite reasonably wanted to know as much as possible about a massacre of children.”
Supporters of Nigel Farage say these comments vindicate the Reform UK leader, who was accused of inciting nationwide violence. Speaking on GB News, Clacton MP Farage announced:
Had we been told more about [the Southport attacker], I do not think the Southport riots would have happened on anything like the level that they did.
Farage also demanded apologies from those—including Tory leadership contender Tom Tugendhat and Labour frontbencher Jess Phillips—who accused him of inciting or attempting to profit from the riots, adding he doubted he would get one “from any of them.”
Shortly after the July 29th killing of three young girls and injuring of eight other children and two adults in a violent knife attack in Southport, reports suggested that information about the attacker was being “managed.” Farage himself questioned “whether the truth is being withheld from us.” Now, very late in the day, the UK body that monitors terror threat levels has echoed this line of inquiry.
With little information being made public at first, false rumours began to spread online—such as that the attacker was a Muslim illegal migrant. Police have since charged a 17-year-old who was born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff and who has no known links to Islam.
By this time, riots—often made up by people from “out of town”—were already well underway across the country. While the nationwide scale of the rioting has been exaggerated, certain towns and cities experienced disorder, including arson and looting.
Six weeks after the attack, Hall was quoted in The Times stating that institutions such as the police, the government and the media
will not continue to enjoy the trust that they have had to date if there is any general sense that things are being hidden and that is exactly what the conspiracy theorists and the grievance merchants depend upon.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice has also used Hall’s suggestions to point out that the “establishment must be honest [and] up front to prevent misinformation.”
Hall’s conclusions are as chilling as they are sensible:
The brutal reality is that at some stage in the future, there will be an attack by someone who is an asylum seeker or who came on a small boat. It is better to be as level and as straight as you can be because terrorism is about attacking institutions, and if institutions do not appear to be transparent, then they suffer.
According to Academy of Ideas director Baroness (Claire) Fox:
The unspeakable murder of these children has become a lightning rod for a wide range of discontent. A feeling that things are out of control and that people have been gaslit and not told the truth of what’s going on.
Opening up a more honest discussion about violence and nihilism in British society would be a step in the right direction.
