Conspiracy theorists seize on chaos in Liverpool
Not even an hour had passed after a driver rammed his car into Liverpool fans celebrating their club winning the Premier League, when prolific users of X, formerly Twitter, took to the site to speculate on the motive and identity of the driver.
At 6.55pm, less than an hour after the incident occurred Tommy Robinson, a far-Right activist, wrongly described it as a 'suspected terror attack,' despite Merseyside Police making no such mention in their statement.
An hour later, Ant Middleton, former Special Forces soldier and Reform UK supporter, pushed the theory further, writing: 'When you have leaders normalising terrorist attacks by saying that they're part and parcel of big city living, you open yourself up to these types of national threats!'
Undoubtedly mindful of the disorder in Southport last summer, by 8pm Merseyside Police announced they had arrested a 53-year-old white British man.
Conspiracy theorists' posts had frightening echoes of the hours after Axel Rudakabana's murdering of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last July.
Reporting restrictions had prevented Rudakubana, then aged 17, from being named. The lack of information about the suspect's identity saw riots engulf the seaside town after rumours spread he was a Muslim asylum seeker.
This time the force poured cold water on rumours, releasing the suspect's details just two hours after the incident. By 10.30pm they'd held a press conference with further details, saying at 10.56pm, undoubtedly mindful of the disorder last summer, that it was not being treated as a terror attack.
That should have put conspiracy theories to bed. But sceptics have raised questions over videos which show a young man driving what appears to be the offending vehicle despite the man arrested being aged 53.
Writing on X, James Goddard said: 'Media announce driver is a 53-year-old White British male but in the footage the driver looks in his early 30's not 50's
'No doubt the authorities are working overtime to piece a dishonest narrative together to feed the public.'
Numerous anonymous accounts on X began questioning whether this was a media and government plan to keep the truth from the public.
People began speculating whether it was a false-flag attack, while others continued to insist that a man seen lying on the ground wrestling with police officers was in fact the driver of the car.
As more details about the alleged attack emerged late on Tuesday, including the fact he was arrested on suspicion of being high on drugs at the time, the conspiracy theorists seized upon one detail still missing from reports: a name.
The fact that there was no name was to many, on social media at least, proof that something was being hidden from them.
'Until the name of the man is made public, don't believe anything', one X user posted.
The reality is that police never name a suspect until they are charged.
Merseyside Police said on Tuesday, during a second press conference, that they had been granted an extension to question the suspect until Wednesday lunchtime.
At that point they will either have to release the man on bail, or make a charging decision.
Whether even that will stop the manic, unfounded speculation that now seems to inevitably follow mass-casualty incidents such as Southport and Liverpool, remains unknown.
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