What It Really Means When You Like or Share Content from Britain First

On these pages we frequently take the time out to celebrate the genuinely positive things which come from social media, such as the force for good that was Stephen Sutton and the unanticipated impact of the no-make-up-selfie movement.

Every now and then however we have to comment on the darker side, the way that the democratisation of publishing and communication is exploited in the service of what can only be described as evil. Because a lot of non-evil people are getting suckered in, being used to spread reach and support for the organisation Britain First – whose Facebook Page likes are currently growing at around 8000 per day.

Other than masters of social media manipulation, who are Britain First? They are a registered political party under the leadership of one James Dowson, who split from the BNP to form his own movement some years ago on a platform of evangelicism, anti-abortion, anti-islam and anti-immigration homophobic hate campaigns. They drive around in military jeeps outside mosques handing out alcohol to fuel mobs recruited from the EDL, and have links with violent extremist groups in Northern Ireland.

None of the above facts play too well on social media though, so how have they become the fastest-growing UK political movement in Facebook history, with over 300k likes – more than the Conservative, Labour and UKIP pages combined? [UPDATED: UKIP growing too fast for this statistic to hold up now] And generated levels of engagement – the ‘people talking about this’ factor – that would leave most brand’s social media managers wringing their hands in envy?

By using simple, emotive viral content, which people click ‘like’ and ‘share’ on – without stopping to think about the cause they are actually promoting and spreading.

Love Diana? Support our troops? Revere the D-Day heroes? (You know, the guys who died fighting fascism 70 years ago..?) An endearing image, a catchy meme – how can you NOT click ‘like’, unless you actually disagree and support paedophiles, right?

In the run-up to the recent European and local elections in the UK, millions of UK residents will have been exposed to a piece of Britain First content – more than buy physical copies of newspapers such as The Independent or The Guardian in any seven day period. Combined with the context of the rise of far right groups in other parts of the continent, and the most cursory reading of the history of the past century, this should make every thinking person’s blood run cold.

“Oh, but I don’t ‘do’ politics” / “I don’t care what they stand for I was touched by that photo” / “Halal just sounds so cruel and I love animals” people wail, when you call them out on sharing content from this evil violent fascist hate-filled organisation.

Well, then you are as much a part of the problem as the people creating and sharing this content in the first place. In some ways you are worse, because those who actually believe in are easy to spot and eliminate from my friends list.

It’s the people I know to be basically good compassionate humans, but think it’s OK to share this stuff, which make me want to weep. They don’t realize they are being cynically manipulated to spread a campaign of hate – how did those fallen veterans consent to the use of their image in this way? Why have the family of Lee Rigby had to undertake legal battles to stop Britain First exploiting the name of their murdered son, on their election campaigning material as well as their social media content? There is nothing this group will not do, no depths they will not sink to, when it comes to exploiting misery and division to fundraise for their campaigns of hate.

Every time you like, share or comment on a Facebook post by Britain First, you create a story in your newsfeed, and spread their reach and their message further. You help them fundraise for their violent oppressive demonstrations and campaigns, you help them threaten peaceful people at worship, you help them beat up gay people, spread poison and divisiveness, you help them fuel ignorance and hate.

Please do not misunderstand me, everyone’s party political views are their own. I enjoy friendship and dialogue with many people whose opinions on many matters I am fundamentally opposed to, or have little interest in. Unlike Britain First I embrace and celebrate diversity and difference, and intelligent discussion of different points of view – heaven knows the world is in a mess right now and I have no grand opinions on the best way to fix it, talking about ideas with people whose ideas challenge and push at your own is a good way of developing solutions.

But it is that frustration at traditional party politics, the anger at austerity, the fear of further loss, that is being exploited by the far right – again.

If you share content from Britain First because you believe in what they stand for then fine, unlike that organisation I actually respect your right to that opinion – let’s go our separate ways and be done with it. Please remove me from your friends list, if I have not already done so recently.

And if you were suckered by their sugar-coated emotive linkbait into sharing something that no-one could disagree with, and you now regret it, you know where the delete button is

(if you don’t – it’s here)

If you have friends who need to read this and make up their own minds about where they stand on disseminating hate propaganda, do consider sharing this post, either on your timeline or as a comment on the content they have shared.

Thanks for reading.

[UPDATED 10-7-14] Not sure whether to laugh or cry over the latest cynical bandwagon jumping by Britain First. They must have had this meme out within about an hour of the press announcement of the unexpected death of one of the UK’s lefty comedy icons. I am sure the friends and family of Rik Mayall have better things to focus on right now than this exploitation following their sudden bereavement, and I am sure the man himself would be roaring with indignant laughter,

About as hilarious as their invocation of Gandhi on their page yesterday as well. Apparently on account of his animal rights positioning – well, so long as we’d never let him through customs and immigration.

Rebel in Paradise Rik, thanks for all the laughs over all the years.



Reproduced with acknowledgements to Costa Connected.

Sometimes it's not possible to repair the damage we cause

Being a technological caveman it took me a couple of years longer than most to discover the phenomenon that is Facebook.

But, prompted by my twelve-year-old twins who use it as a means through which to communicate with the world, I have finally activated the account that I'd forgotten I set up some time ago and I spent most of last night trawling through lists of friends of friends to see who was on there that I knew. Throughout the night I fired off a couple of dozen friend requests, and have received several returns, some from people with whom I'd lost contact years ago.

Two of these were brothers who attended my primary school. For the purposes of this article I'll call them Jimmy and Robert. I remember both of them well, Jimmy being about my own age and Robert a couple of years older. There were both really nice lads, well liked by everyone. I can't remember either of them ever getting into an altercation with a fellow pupil - not even me, and as a kid I made it my business to upset most of the other kids at some point or another.

Jimmy's and Robert's roots are in the Caribbean. They hail from a very famous sporting family in the West Indies. My recollection of Jimmy was that he could throw a cricket ball seemingly for miles. He also went on to become a very good boxer, although his progress was hampered by a nose which gushed with blood whenever you called it a name.

I had seen Jimmy more recently than Robert. He provided the disco at mine and Caroline's wedding back in 1995 (I do hope I haven't got the date wrong!). Although he himself had moved out of the area some of his folks still resided locally and I was able to make contact with him.

Well last night I came across them both and I sent off a request to them both to become my Facebook friends. A few hours passed before Jimmy responded, accepting my request and joining my thus far embarrassingly small but thankfully growing list. But this afternoon I received a message from Robert informing me that he had no wish to have anything to do with me on account of my political history.

I have to say I was quite hurt when I read Robert's response. Their different ethnicity hadn't even registered when I had sent off the request, just as it had seldom registered at primary school. It just simply wasn't an issue. I had almost forgotten that for so many years I had been an active member and organiser of the National Front. Robert's reply to me provided a disarming reminder of that dark period of my life.

The sense of hurt which I felt upon reading his words was not directed at Robert himself, but was more a reflection of my own feeling of shame at the unhappiness that I must clearly have caused to such a decent man to inspire him to react in that way. During the course of my political work as an independent community councillor I come across politicians all the time who speak to me and even drink with me privately one evening and then announce publicly the next day that they would never have anything to do with me because of my past political activities. This is tacky politicking at its worst and I really couldn't give a toss for the feelings of such people. But Robert's comments provided me with a sobering reminder that it is sometimes wrong to assume that any damage caused by our actions can always later be repaired.

If my experience today strikes a cord with anybody who is still labouring under the illusion that they can reconcile their far-right activity with a "normal" life outside of extremist politics then they should think again, and think carefully. The deeper you sink, the more difficult it is to get back to where you need to be should you ever wish to reconnect with the real world.