On 12 August Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner, was filmed as he was leaving the COBRA meeting, taking Sky News journalist Rob Catherall’s microphone and dropping it to the ground having been asked by Catherall if he was “going to end two-tier policing”.
The journalist’s question, referring to the belief that police have been treating minority groups less harshly than white people, both historically, and in the wake of the recent riots, was an astonishingly provocative and misplaced one. It was highly irresponsible to ask a question intended only to cause trouble, during a national emergency, when the only concern of the whole country was (or should have been) how best to stop the riots and minimise harm. Rowley’s contemptuous response, although perhaps ill-advised, was fitting.
The role of the press in a national emergency
The whole episode raises questions about the role of the press in an emergency. The media’s role should be to report on the news and not to try and create it by inflaming tensions by poking the hot embers of a fire to generate more viewers (or clicks).
Reprehensible as Sky News’s approach was, it was tame compared with GB News. A substantive portion of GB News’s coverage may have had the effect of undermining police and government efforts to suppress the riots, even while they were still in progress. Some of GB News’s output is likely, whether intentionally or not, to have fomented disorder and antipathy towards the police – and at the very least failed to minimise it.
GB News’ social media output
I have not examined all GB News media output but have focused on their X (Twitter) posts. GB News has a very small TV audience: 0.45% of TV viewers, made up of mostly older right-wing viewers who tend not to be a rioting demographic. It does however have an online reach of just under 60 million people who dip in and out of its coverage. Thus, the promotion of shows or clips of shows on X and other social media platforms forms a significant information stream.
I searched GB News tweets from 30 July (the start of the riots) to 14 August (5pm) for references to ‘two tier’ or ‘two-tier’ policing. Over the fortnight, but mostly in the week when the riots were most active, there were 26 different tweets about ‘two-tier policing’. One tweet was reposted an additional three times, so 29 tweets in total. All were accompanied by short videos from programmes and were quoting and amplifying comments made in the programmes.
GB News’ key players
In the tweets, right-wing comedian Leo Kearse was mentioned four times and there were a further three repetitions of tweets in which he featured. The Reform UK Limited MP Lee Anderson featured three times, Richard Tice, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Kevin Hurley (retired police officer) were both referred to twice and there was a further tweet about Hurley that did not name him. Any other named people were named just once.
All 26 (different) tweets, except three, assume unquestioningly, that two-tier policing is operating and that two-tier policing discriminates against white people. Some were discussions with commentators who backed up their claims:
“I don’t like it when people say mean and nasty things, but you should be able to do that in a free society.” James Price says he understands why people say there is two-tier justice in the UK after seeing the sentences given to people for publishing content online.
Other included examples of what GB News considered to be ‘two-tier policing’:
“Where were the police?!” Priti Patel MP reacts to footage of civil unrest in Birmingham, questioning why police were not present to shut down violent scenes, amid concerns of two-tier policing.
But mostly, they were just repeating unevidenced assertions:
“Keir Starmer denies two-tier policing, we know there is. He’s turning a blind eye to certain demographics. It’s been shocking. Reform UK Limited MP, @LeeAndersonMP, believes ‘absolutely’ Keir Starmer is more to blame than Nigel Farage for inciting riots.”
There were only four out of 26 tweets that indicated there might be a contrary view and ‘two-tier policing’ was a contested phrase that could not be assumed:
“BREAKING: Sir Mark Rowley has called accusations of two-tier policing complete nonsense. He also claims the comments are ‘putting officers at risk’.
“‘There were always sections of society that we had to police differently… but it wasn’t based on skin colour.’ Ex-police officer Graham Wettone defends the ‘two-tier policing’ accusations, saying policing is based on the risks people bring as opposed to the ethnicity of groups.”
But GB News turned the challenge to the notion of ‘two-tier’ policing into an angry rant:
“‘You have an agenda!’ GB News row erupts over two-tier policing as more chaos expected.”
“Policing Minister denies two-tier allegations: ‘It makes me INCREDIBLY angry!’”
Rather than enabling the challenge to be understood and heard.
I also searched for ‘police’ in GB News tweets over the same period to ensure that the search word ‘two-tier’ was not screening out tweets that were positive or neutral about the police approaches to quelling the riots. Over the period in question there were a couple of neutral tweets e.g. ‘police arrest a man’ (almost all unrelated to the riots) with no commentary or opinion, but the rest were negative and all were about ‘two-tier policing’. It was the only GB News agenda item.
There were no tweets about police injuries, police bravery, the role of police animals, the experience of police officers, or statements by police chiefs; all matters covered in other news outlets and in their publicity tweets. Accusations of ‘two-tier policing’ were used as the primary means through which hostility towards the police was expressed.
GB News’ presenters
GB News has 30 presenters listed on its website. Although I could not locate three on X, of the remaining 27, 11 had tweeted about the police during the riots: Tice, Anderson, Nigel Farage, Darren Grimes, Patrick Christys, Michelle Dewberry, Bev Turner, Leo Kearse, Martin Daubney, Andrew Doyle and Arlene Foster. Excepting Arlene Foster, all those who tweeted, tweeted negatively about the police and tweeted about ‘two-tier’ policing.
Arlene Foster spoke positively about and in support of the police as they as they tried to quell the riots in Belfast.
GB News and Reform UK Limited MPs
MPs represent all those living in their constituency regardless of their immigration or ethnic background. There is no ‘two-tier’ political representation in the UK. As members of parliament, they have a responsibility to hold the government to account. But they have a responsibility to do that in such a way as to not inflame volatile situations or that have the potential to undermine law and order, put their constituents at risk, or threaten public safety.
I examined the tweets relating to ‘two-tier policing’ or policing more generally from 30 July to 20 August of the three GB News presenters who are MPs – Tice, Farage, and Anderson, all members of Reform UK Limited. Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative) is no longer an MP. Reform MPs have a long history of criticising the police including accusations of ‘two-tier policing’ going back at least as far as 2020.
These attacks may have done much to undermine confidence in policing and promote the anti-police antagonism that has emerged in some groups. However, such attacks are within the bounds of acceptable, even if inflammatory and unhelpful, behaviour from a political organisation in ‘peace time’ and they are not included in this analysis.
A search on Farage revealed just one tweet on 8 August calling for the arrest of a Labour councillor for incitement (the arrest was made). He did, however, have another post on the riots (no mention of policing in the tweet) with an attached statement saying he was “appalled by the level of violence … so many police officers have been injured … in the short term, we will quell the riots, but deeper long-term problems remain”.
He then goes on to criticise “soft policing” of the Black Lives Matter protests and states “the impression of two-tier policing has become widespread” and blames immigration. Farage seeks a recall of parliament, not address the riots, but to debate immigration.
Distortions via social media
Anderson was more prolific with nine posts, not one supporting police efforts. Most are reposting other people’s tweets with his comment about two-tier policing. Or, as in this example selectively choosing and distorting cases. Anderson juxtaposes two young black men, ‘asylum seekers’, who were not imprisoned, with William Morgan, a 69-year-old pensioner sentenced to two years imprisonment. Anderson’s approach suggests we have a vulnerable, white, old man being discriminated against for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Morgan was part of the group that set fire to the library in Sefton, Liverpool, and attacked the police. He went out on the rampage armed with a truncheon, clearly hoping to hurt someone. Anderson is emulating what right-wing convicted criminals such as Tommy Robinson (aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) are doing: presenting white rioters as vulnerable innocents and setting their case next to completely unrelated events involving a black person committing a crime. It may be construed as an attempt to present white people as victims, attack the police and give legitimacy to some of those involved in the riots.
Tice did not hold back with 14 posts, all negative towards the police. Like Farage, he understands the gravity of the riots and the situation the police are in but, also like Farage, seeks a debate, not on how the riots might be quelled but to discuss immigration, a further opportunity to stoke the fires under parliamentary privilege. On 5 August he posted (with Farage’s statement attached):
“It is time to recall Parliament. We all totally condemn the riots and violence which must be stopped by our brave police officers. We must start a proper debate about mass immigration & two-tier policing, that gives confidence to millions of concerned citizens.”
Undermining the criminal justice system
However, the most egregious example of undermining the police and the justice system is Tice’s post on 8 August:
In this tweet, he appears to support the police although the attacks on the police are only ‘vicious’ when thought to be committed by a black person. He then uses police victimhood to further attack police and the justice system’s tardiness in concluding the case as he thinks fit. As no charges have been brought, this tweet is not perverting the cause of justice, but may undermine it. Here, police ‘victims’ are merely a means of promoting his, and Reform’s, particular political agenda.
Both Anderson and Tice, in their own tweets or, most commonly, in reposting someone else’s, effectively downplayed the gravity of the offences and minimised the culpability of the rioters, often ignoring the violence of those arrested. Communication on Facebook is often cited in court as evidence.
Campaigners then accuse judges of sentencing for Facebook posts when a more detailed analysis of the court reports indicates imprisonment for offences of violence; the Facebook post being used as evidence of motivation or organisation. Many of those imprisoned were attempting to murder asylum seekers or mosque attendees. None of this is widely acknowledged by GB News’s tweets, GB News presenters’ tweets or GB News MPs’ tweets.
Anderson and Tice seemingly made no checks on the veracity of the cases they have reposted, thus adding to the mass of misinformation circulating about police and court activities, although Tice prefaces one post by “if this is true” as though to protect himself from potential criticism or litigation.
GB News: a news channel or propagator of anti-democratic misinformation?
Looking at GB News and its presenters’ tweets, you could be forgiven for being totally unaware that many rioters were attempting to murder asylum seekers and mosques attendees, or that Muslims in the UK now fear for their lives because they are the target of these rioting groups and will need continued state protection. GB News and their presenters (with the exception of Arlene Foster) tend to ignore all of this and focus only on how unfair it is that those who would have committed murder, had they not been stopped, are prosecuted and sentenced.
That they faced charges of riot or public disorder rather than attempted murder is not testament to their benign behaviour or intentions but testament to police and community action. In Southport and Rotherham more than 50 police officers in each location were injured protecting citizens. In automatically questioning the policing of the riots, select GB News presenters and commentators effectively undermine responsible policing efforts and the bravery of officers.
Looking at GB News and its presenters’ reach, influence and the contribution it may have made to inflaming the riots and attacks on the police, I searched ‘two-tier’ across the whole of Twitter. None of the GB News presenters feature in the top ten most visited posts. However, right-wing podcaster Lee Harris – who does not appear on GB News website as a presenter but cites GB News in his Twitter biography – has 94K followers and was the most viewed (62.3K impressions) and the tenth most viewed. How far his influence extends, and the extent to which he is known to the general public is difficult to judge.
Responsible journalism
While GB News and its presenters have indicated no contrition for their behaviour, they are aware that their unmeasured and unevidenced tweets pose a risk of them being accused of inflaming tensions or causing hatred. Sue Wilson’s piece in Yorkshire Bylines discusses the disclaimer being used by their presenters in the hope that it will excuse their behaviour.
GB News is a well-established national TV channel. Although its viewing figures are tiny, it has considerable reach through social media. At a time of national crisis, it has offered little support for helping to manage the situation – as would be expected from a responsible media outlet.
Instead, it denigrated the efforts of the police in managing the riots and accused them of bias. Many of its presenters, with the notable exception of Arlene Foster, all took a similar approach in their own responses on social media in what came across (intentionally or otherwise) as an indifference toward de-escalating the riots and, in some cases, further stoking anger against immigrants and the police. For a national broadcast channel, this is beyond irresponsible and ultimately threatens to undermine our democracy and the state institutions responsible for upholding it.
