A former counter-terrorism police chief has accused Nigel Farage of helping incite violence that broke out in Southport after the killing of three children in a knife attack this week.

Farage drew criticism from across the political spectrum for remarks he made in a video on Tuesday in which he questioned “whether the truth is being withheld from us” after the attack on Monday.

Neil Basu – a former senior Scotland Yard officer who was in charge of counter-terrorism from 2018 to 2021 – said there were “real world consequences” when public figures failed to “keep their mouth shut”.

“Nigel Farage is giving the EDL [English Defence League] succour, undermining the police, creating conspiracy theories, and giving a false basis for the attacks on the police,” he said, referring to the far-right, Islamophobic group whose supporters are believed to have been involved in the rioting in Southport.

“Has Nigel Farage condemned the violence? Has he condemned the EDL? Fomenting discord in society is what these people seem to exist for,” Basu added.

Farage said that it was “quite legitimate to ask questions”.

Others who criticised the Reform UK leader on Wednesday included the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, who said Farage had “a level of responsibility … and it’s not to stoke up what conspiracy theories or what you think might have happened”.

“There’s a responsibility to say the police are doing a difficult job, local authorities, all of the services that are on the ground,” she said in an interview on LBC.

“We have a responsibility to hold the community together and say let’s get the facts, and then let’s look at what the actual solutions are and what we can do about the horrific situation that we find ourselves in, not to stir up these fake news online.”

Farage was also described on Wednesday as “nothing better than a Tommy Robinson in a suit” by Brendan Cox, the campaigner and husband of the murdered Labour MP, Jo Cox. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, founded the EDL in 2009.

There was a rapid spread online of misinformation after the attack, with inflammatory far-right narratives rife on the comment threads under posts by Farage and another Reform MP, Rupert Lowe, on their official Facebook pages.

Under posts by Farage and Lowe, who echoed Farage by saying there was “more to this than we’re being told”, comments ranged from predictions of a coming race war, sharing of misinformation, antisemitic tropes and claims of a cover-up.

“This is clearly not a case of accidental mischaracterisation. This is Reform and Farage in particular actively spreading disinformation and actively using insinuation to incite anxiety, concern and inflame emotions,” Cox said.

Farage was described as “utterly shameful” by the Tory peer Lord Barwell, the former MP who served as Theresa May’s Downing Street chief of staff.

He said: “He is an MP. If he has questions, he could have asked them in the House of Commons yesterday – but he wasn’t there. Instead he prefers to encourage those spreading misinformation on here [social media]. Utterly shameful.”

Farage had posted a video on X on Tuesday in which he said he had “one or two questions” as he speculated about whether the stabbing suspect was being monitored by security services.

“I just wonder whether the truth is being withheld from us. I don’t know the answer to that, but I think it is a fair and legitimate question,” he said.

Farage maintained his position in an interview with the PA news agency, insisting he had “merely expressed a sense of sadness and concern that is being felt by absolutely everybody I know – ‘what the hell is going on?’”

He added: “I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask what is happening to law and order in our country.

“And who are the perpetrators? Why? Very legitimate questions I was asking, and to conflate that with EDL or anybody else, frankly, it’s desperate stuff.”

The violence against police during the rioting prompted Rayner to raise the prospect of banning more far-right groups.

“We have laws and we have proscribed groups and we do look at that and
it is reviewed regularly. So I’m sure that that will be something that
the home secretary will be looking at as part of the normal course of
what we do and the intelligence that we have,” she told LBC.

The home secretary’s office declined to comment. Two far-right groups have been banned in the last eight years. National Action, a racist neo-Nazi group, was proscribed in 2016, followed by the Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD), a white supremacist group, in 2020.