Childminder Lucy Connolly was caring for infants at her home in Northampton on July 29 last year when she heard on the news about the murder of three young girls in Southport. She was upset – like many people – and had seen – again, like many – rumours that an illegal immigrant was responsible.
These had been fuelled by early eyewitness reports describing the killer as dark skinned, boosted by fake online news reports, and growing public discontent about hotels being filled with mostly young men claiming asylum.
The state treats expressions of majority nationalism as an existential threat in a way it doesn’t any other worldview, including Irish republicanism or even Islamism and this explains the extraordinarily harsh way it polices online discourse on the right
Connolly described herself as a ‘ridiculously overprotective’ mother to her own 11-year-old daughter, and the news from Southport sent her into a panic. In anger and fear, she typed out to her 9,000 Twitter followers:
‘Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them.
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