Wednesday briefing: In a new era of far-right organising, how can we tackle hate?

Tommy Robinson at the Unite the Kingdom Rally in London in mid-May, an event organised online. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Tommy Robinson at the Unite the Kingdom Rally in London in mid-May, an event organised online. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Shutterstock Wednesday briefing: In a new era of far-right organising, how can we tackle hate? In today’s newsletter: The far right are using social media to foster division, from Southampton to Belfast, but there are calls for clear and urgent ways to counter digital radicalism Good morning. Ten years after the murder of the MP Jo Cox by a rightwing extremist in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, her sister Kim Leadbeater, now herself a MP, issued a clear and urgent summons. In an interview on our Today in Focus podcast , she proposed that political hatred in Britain is worse now than at the time of her sister’s killing, but insisted “those voices who are sowing the division are in the minority.” “They are very loud. But the rest of us then have got a duty to drown them out and tell the good stories of this country,” she said. But what if one of those loud voices belongs to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who owns one of the largest social media platforms, reinstated Britain’s foremost far-right agitator on to it and amplifies a highly networked transnational far-right movement to his 240 million followers? The start of the week was dominated by debate about keeping children safe around social media – today I want to talk about another online harm that is fomenting offline violence and contributing to a feeling and a reality that British streets are hostile, particularly for people of colour. I discussed all of this with political correspondent Ben Quinn , who has reported on the far right across the UK for more than a decade. Before that, the headlines. Five big stories UK news | A Russian warship fired warning shots within a few hundred metres of a British pleasure yacht sailing across the Channel amid a period of heightened tensions between London and Moscow. UK politics | The Lib Dems will urge Andy Burnham to end Labour’s “torpor and timidity” towards the EU as they call for the UK to rejoin the single market, in a notable strengthening of their own position. Middle East | Iran’s top diplomat has said a peace deal with the US would require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, as concern grows that Israel could undermine diplomatic efforts to finally end the Middle East war. Media | A BBC presenter lauded by the corporation for his appeal to young male audiences has a history of making abusive and misogynistic remarks about women, whom he has variously called “slags”, “sluts”, “psychos” and “bitches”, the Guardian can reveal . US news | Joe Biden’s decision to seek a second term was “ a terrible mistake ” that cost Democrats the presidency and may have permanently damaged his legacy, Hillary Clinton has declared. In depth: ‘Planning is being done quite openly and exp