Last year there was a spate of arson attacks against Kier Starmer's property, a section of the right-wing media seemed to enjoy these attacks as a means to demonstrating how unpopular Starmer was, while some such as Toby Young's Daily Sceptic suggested this was a sign civil war was on the horizon. There certainly wasn’t much in the way of suggesting that reducing the heat of political rhetoric might be beneficial. After arrests were made many of the typical characters online began suggesting the arson attacks were committed by Ukrainian rent boys who Starmer had failed to pay. It's reminiscent of MAGA madness and demonstrates how conspiracy culture is growing in the UK.
A BBC investigation published shortly after the trial concluded revealed that the Russian money was the motivation behind the arson attacks. Below are some sections of that investigation:
The 22-year-old Ukrainian builder had been weaponised to target the UK’s head of government. But by who?
Our investigation has found the arson attack was just one part of an extensive campaign of sabotage, provocation and lies leading all the way to the Russian state.
The handler EL, who directed Lavrynovych, offered Russian citizenship in return for other attacks and glorified President Vladimir Putin, messages the BBC has uncovered show.
We have identified evidence suggesting that EL is a young Russian diplomat, schooled in information warfare by spies and propagandists, who is close to the highest levels of power in Moscow. His name is Evgeny Lyukshin. He is 23 and the son of a senior official.
Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.
Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
There was no mention in the trial of what the posters put up by Lavrynovych on EL’s orders actually advertised: a purported far-right group called Direct Action UK.
The group sought to appear as an organic British creation. But we found that Direct Action was created online by Russian operatives to cause division among ordinary people in the UK.
Messages sent in the group bore a Moscow timestamp, used Cyrillic letters, and placed pound signs at the end of numbers, rather than at the start - as in Russian.
The accounts that were principally involved in running Direct Action, particularly EL’s, were using other channels to promote Russian political goals and using Russian to communicate.
Direct Action first appeared online in autumn 2024, after the riots that followed the Southport murders, and its propaganda exploited images from the disorder.
Its social media channels, which the posters were advertising, featured videos branding Sir Keir a traitor, promoting hatred of Muslims and offering money for violence and arson, including attacks on mosques and police. Direct Action also lionised Tommy Robinson.
“This is war,” the group declared.
But, although Direct Action was fake, it generated real-life attacks. In London, six mosques and an Islamic school were vandalised last year after the group offered payment for Islamophobic graffiti.
Slogans such as “remigration” and “Stop Islam” were spray-painted on mosques from Croydon in the south of the capital to Leyton in the east. Direct Action turned video clips of the vandalism into brash social media videos, to amplify hatred and create fear.
Anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate investigated Direct Action and reported its concerns to counter-terror police in February last year, months before the arson attacks relating to the prime minister. Hope Not Hate concluded that Russians were behind the group.
The anti-racist organisation told the authorities people behind the group may be grooming UK residents to launch a “terror attack against a mosque or identifiably Muslim target in the UK”.
The attack on the prime minister’s property was also used for online propaganda.
One lie spread on social media by Russia-based accounts became particularly well-known - that the three Ukrainian suspects were sex workers, with the implication that the fires were the result of a personal sex scandal.
It was all untrue. The suspects did not know the prime minister personally and they were not sex workers. But the lie was taken up by Tommy Robinson, the very person who had been promoted by Direct Action, EL’s fake far-right group.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, claimed on X that Sir Keir Starmer had been “banging” Ukrainian male sex workers and posted a fake image of the prime minister with the suspects. Putin’s special presidential envoy Kirill Dimitriev reposted one of his messages about the case.
While Tommy Robinson was calling people out onto the streets here, he was busy having fun in Moscow with Elon Musk’s father and Russian Nazi’s.
Nafeez Ahmed has done a brilliant piece in the Byline Times regarding Robinson’s Russian friends.
Revealed: The Russian Neo-Nazi Network Pushing ‘White Lives Matter’ Division in Britain – Promoted by Tommy Robinson
Despite the lack of evidence there were plenty of the usual characters still promoting the rent boy story in exactly the way that will have pleased Putin. There is a considerable overlap between those pushing the rent boy story and those who say we should stop wasting money supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression.
Some examples, most with considerable followings on X.
It’s also worth looking back at some of those accounts that last year helped get the Russian propoganda rolling. The same accounts who spend most of their days spreading disinformation and sowing division.
Tommy Robinson hanging out with Elon Musk's dad in Moscow is just one of many recent examples of right-wing influencers such as Candace Owens and the Tate brothers, to have enjoyed Russian hospitality.
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