Investigating the far right's tactics to rile up "ordinary people" in online echo chambers

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said far-right criminals and thugs rioting across the UK would regret their actions. But, a parallel information system is using his own words against him to build a siege mentality amongst millions of far-right sympathisers.

At Valent, we monitor 12 UK far-right echo chamber networks reaching approximately 6 million people in the UK daily. They are designed to recruit those susceptible to far-right ideology, where narratives are tested to portray events in a certain way that provokes them the most, and - at key moments - mobilise them.

These networks have been built over many years and we are now seeing the activation of immigration rhetoric from the election, combined with the framing of recent events to fit predetermined narratives to justify the actions of the rioters. Any response by the UK authorities is refracted through a carefully crafted lens to incite the audience further. As the crackdown intensifies, the PM’s speech that was meant to dissuade rioters and reassure wider society is instead being used to stoke further anger.

Mainstream coverage of the PM’s speech reached 500k viewers (official news figures). However, repurposed clips and comments on social media have reached millions more, with context shaped by those who control the accounts. Control over the accounts provides control over the narrative.

So how is the far-right portraying the PM’s words? “The PM is a traitor, using peaceful protests to increase repression of patriotic Brits in their own country for the benefit of immigrants.” This version is going out to millions of far-right sympathisers multiple times a day

Slogans such as “two tier Kier”, “enough is enough” and “our children's lives matter” are mixed in with anti-woke and anti-immigration messaging that is common within the audiences’ echo chambers. With the networks targeting lower-income males, aged 50+, in suburbs/market towns.

Long-term monitoring lets us see patterns over time, and predict how tactics will evolve. As in the US, we know the far right will seek to portray opponents - local communities, anti-racist activists etc - as attacking British values. We are already seeing these narratives

The networks are also used to test messaging - which means we can see what works for them. At the moment, they claim the government is harsh towards “justifiably angry Brits” but lenient towards “immigrants/Islamists/liberals/the left”. Expect “proof points” in the coming days

We also see what doesn’t work, such as;

• “Starmer creating a police state”
• “police breaking the law by arresting rioters at home”,
• “UK police providing cover for Muslims instigating a race war”
• "Labour spending money to protect mosques"
• "Starmer creating a police state"

Over the past two decades, the information environment has completely changed. In the past, established relationships between power and media shaped public discourse. Technology has upended this, and new actors have seized the opportunity. Today, what people believe about their rulers, economic systems and neighbours is influenced by unknown actors - such as those paying for the networks Valent has been monitoring, which regularly reach 6 million people. Many organisations struggle to understand this change and what it means