Sir Keir Starmer three years ago called for “tough sanctions” against the social media messaging app linked to this week’s riots, it has emerged.
In October 2021, the Labour leader described Telegram as the “app of choice for extremists” and urged the then Conservative government led by Boris Johnson to launch a crackdown.
But the current Prime Minister has now been criticised for failing to take action against the platform, in the wake of riots following last week’s attack in Southport.
Telegram, which allows users to send instant encrypted messages, has been used by far-right groups to co-ordinate unrest – including a plan to target up to 39 immigration centres and law firms across the country at the same time on Wednesday evening.
Anti-racist group Hope Not Hate criticised the “lack of action” against the “hub for violent extremists”.
There are growing calls for Telegram to enforce a strict ban on channels that have been found to be instrumental in organising riots and inciting violence.
In a sign of the deepening crisis, the Prime Minister is chairing his second Cobra meeting in as many days on Tuesday evening.
Ministers and police chiefs wil use the emergency meeting to disucss ways to respond to violent disorder ahead of the Wednesday’s expected extremist action.
Since the riots erupted – fuelled by misinformation about the identity of the alleged Southport attacker – Sir Keir has pledged to come down hard on those responsible for the unrest – both in person and online.
Last week he warned social media companies that they had a responsibility to uphold laws banning the incitement of violence and racism. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle held talks with Meta, Google, X and TikTok on Monday, urging them to ensure that those behind the disorder had “nowhere to hide” online.
Yet the talks did not include Telegram, and the Government declined to answer whether the company had been asked to take part. There have been no fresh measures against Telegram or other social media firms since the riots erupted.
In October 2021, in the wake of the murder of Conservative MP Sir David Amess, Starmer told the Commons: “Telegram has been described as the ‘app of choice’ for extremists. If you can believe it, Mr Speaker, as we were paying tribute to Sir David on Monday – as we were paying our respects – Telegram users were able to access videos of murders and violent threats against politicians, the LGBT community, women and Jews.
“Some of those posts are illegal; all of them are harmful. Hope Not Hate and the Board of Deputies have said that Telegram ‘has facilitated and nurtured a subculture that cheerleads for… terrorists’.
“Tough sanctions are clearly needed, yet under the Government’s current proposals, directors of platforms failing to crack down on extremism would still not face criminal sanctions. Why is that?”
Asked on Tuesday about Sir Keir’s call for tough sanctions three years ago, Joe Mulhall, director of research for Hope Not Hate, said: “Over the past week we have once again seen how Telegram has been used by extreme figures to spread hate and organise events that have resulted in horrifying violence on the streets of the UK.
“Certain Telegram groups have played a central role in directing individuals to attack mosques and accommodation housing asylum seekers. We have also seen death threats towards politicians circulating on the platform.
“Hope Not Hate have been calling for action against Telegram for many years. Tragically, the lack of action against the platform has allowed it to remain a hub for violent extremists, and it is our communities that are paying the price.”
Addressing his weekly Cabinet on Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister reiterated that the Government would impose the “full force of the law” against rioters and those who incited hate online.
He told ministers: “When I went to Southport I spoke to police who described what it was like to attend the mass stabbing of little girls and then to be back on duty the next day in riot gear, having bricks thrown at them.
“This is something no one would have ever wanted to see and we need to be calling it out for what it is. It is not protest. It is violent disorder and needs to be treated as such, as criminal activity.”
He added that “99.9 per cent of people across the country want their streets to be safe and to feel safe in their communities, and we will take all necessary action to bring the disorder to an end.”
While some of the far-right Telegram channels linked to disorder appear to have been closed on Tuesday, it is unclear whether the platform removed the channels itself – and more have since sprung up to replace them.
Telegram, founded by brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov, who is French-Emirati and Dubai-based, in 2013, differs from other social media sites in a number of ways which make it more difficult to control and block extreme content.
Even when attempts are made to ban content, the nature of the platform means it is a “game of whack-a-mole,” said Sid Venkataramakrishnan, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who has been studying the use of Telegram to disseminate information and organise riots.
“One of the big challenges is the fact that these channels can be recreated very easily,” he said. “What we’ve seen in the case of some of the channels, post the tragedy in Southport, was that they got brigaded by people antithetic to the views being voiced there, and were either locked down or closed down, but just created again.
“I’ve seen a few of the incitement of violence channels shut down this morning, but it’s hard to say whether that’s because the Government cracked down on them, or whether it was pressure on the platform, or whether it was just because they had too many people who were not part of the group joining and pushing it in a way they didn’t want.”
Mr Venkataramakrishnan said many accounts that are not UK-based have been sharing information about protests and whipping up support. “There are football hooligans based mainly in western Europe, Australian nationalists, US neo-Nazis,” he said.
“Even when a UK channel was banned today, a US-based one was again promoting where protests will take place to try and spread the message, which creates a kind of resilience to banning.”
In a statement Telegram said: “Telegram’s moderators are actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence. Calls to violence are explicitly forbidden by Telegram’s terms of service.
“Moderators use a combination of proactive monitoring of public parts of the platform, sophisticated AI tools and user reports to ensure content that breaches Telegram’s terms is removed.”
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