A neo-Nazi described in court as a leading organiser of the summer riots following the horrific Southport stabbings received a prison sentence of over seven years.
Taxi driver Andrew McIntyre, 39, created the “Southport Wake Up” Telegram channel, encouraging others to carry out violence and disorder in Southport on July 30, including targeting the local mosque.
He pleaded guilty to pleading guilty to encouraging violent disorder and criminal damage and possession of a bladed article in a public place.
During sentencing, Judge Flewitt stated that racism was the key motivator for McIntyre, and “I have no doubt your actions encouraged many people to plan and then to commit offences of both violent disorder and criminal damage.”
For the prosecution, Arthur Gibson outlined that the riots and disorder were not ‘spontaneous’ or “that persons coincidentally simply decided to turn up and take part” and that individuals “to a greater or lesser degree participated in the organisation, encouragement and incitement of such gatherings, which resulted in the disorder.”
Two days before the far-right violence and disorder descended upon the mosque in Southport, threatening notes appeared, and staff alerted Merseyside Police. As the threat of violence grew on the day, officers encouraged congregants to lock themselves in the mosque. As the Liverpool Echo reported: “By now, Islamophobic hate chants could be heard from the growing mob outside, and there were attempts to break down the front door. Items resembling makeshift petrol bombs were thrown at the building, as well as bricks and rocks, resulting in several broken windows.”
Residents, disgusted by the far-right violence, worked together to clean up the damage and provide support to the mosque.
In the days before McIntyre’s arrest on August 8, Tell MAMA’s investigations and research team reported numerous social media materials, including from individuals responsible for and posting in the “Southport Wake Up” channel to various police forces and counter-terrorism.
Officers found a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf at McIntyre’s address.
One admin post from 4 August 2024 read: “WE NEED TO GET POLITICAL NOW LADS, STARTING WITH LIVERPOOL, WHAT GOVERNMENTAL BUILDING ARE WE TARGETING FIRST. THE TRAITORS WILL HANG. POST SUGGESTIONS IN COMMENTS (USE BURNER ACCOUNTS ONLY).”
Another post about the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, read, “We’re going to hang this woman and her associates, lads.” It was accompanied by various flexed biceps and fire emojis. McIntyre, however, was cleared of such a charge, as Judge Neil Flewitt KC stated: “There is a clear distinction between what might be termed a rant, however unpleasant it is, and messages which clearly incite criminal activity to take place.” The count will instead lie on McIntyre’s file.
A day later, he shared terrorist material – the Christchurch terror attacks – responsible for the murder of 51 Muslims in New Zealand in March 2019, captioning it “WHITE LEGEND F*** ISLAM F*** JEWS” and glorifying the name of the white supremacist terrorist responsible.
Other deeply disturbing anti-Muslim content from the Telegram channel included statements like “Kill All Muslims” and “Burn all mosques” surrounded by fire emojis.
Other examples of neo-Nazi propaganda included a white supremacist meme captioned: “TRIBE UP, ARM UP, WHITE LADS.”
Following the abhorrent violence and disorder in Southport, including the targeting of a local mosque, called for “Round 2” and named another mosque. The second half of the message contained extremist, racist language: “Mass deportations. Ethno state. Death to traitors. We are not asking, we are protesting. We are coming to take what is ours. Rise sons of Europa.”
During the trial, it emerged that McIntyre shared materials with pages called “Tommy Robinson/Britain First/For Britain” and “Liverpool People’s Resistance.”
The Liverpool Echo reported that Andrew McIntyre had two alt accounts on Telegram, revealing his engagement with other accounts, including praising the targeting of mosques, and in another example, posted in a pro-Tommy Robinson channel, “Free Quran stand in Liverpool city centre gets f***ed up. Go on lads,” inciting violence towards Muslims once again.
On X (formerly Twitter), McIntyre created an account on August 1 to spread their racist propaganda and incite others towards violence by posting the location of various mosques, the offices of immigration lawyers and hotels hosting refugees, repeating the extremist, racist and menacing content he shared on Telegram.
McIntyre harassed members of the public with abuse and antisemitic slurs before targeting Nick Lowles of HOPE Not Hate on the platform, whose investigation detailed McIntyre’s neo-Nazi ideology.
X limited the reach of but did not remove an extreme racist post from McIntyre that used the N-word.
Our investigation found that he interacted with another infamous far-right X user who incited others to riot – Wayne O’Rourke, replying to a racist tweet about refugees with screenshots of the locations of various mosques and hotels, each had various fire emojis attached and called for “mass deportations”.
Calls for violence from their X account appeared routinely – “Violence is right when it is time, now is the time,” “the time for violence is NOW,” and in reply to a post asking what “Britain needs the most right now” he replied “weapons”.
On Telegram and X, McIntrye used dehumanising anti-Muslim and Islamophobic language – calling Muslims “Muzzies” and “Muzz rats”. Across more than a decade of research, Tell MAMA has long documented how such animalistic and mechanistic forms of dehumanisation of Muslims appear online, especially how the above examples routinely appear in far-right discourse.
Following sentencing, Detective Inspector Paula Jones of Merseyside Police made clear that: “McIntyre played a key role in coordinating the group who took to the streets on 30 July, using social media to encourage members of the group to turn up at the heart of the communities in Southport and Liverpool to commit criminal damage. The result left dozens of officers injured as bricks, bins and other missiles were thrown at them.”