Far right extremist leaflets have been posted through doors in Liverpool and hung up near the city's football stadiums at points over the last year, a council report has warned.
The report from Liverpool Council's Community Coordinator also warns that such groups are exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to attract new members. It suggests that the socioeconomic fallout of the Covid crisis could create a large number of people who are "alienated" from mainstream participation in society and vulnerable to recruitment by such groups.
The Community Coordinator, funded by the Home Office, tackles issues of extremism and hate crime through a number of community cohesion projects across the city.
The new report, which will be discussed by the council's Neighbourhoods Select Committee this week, covers its work over the last year and outlines a series of worrying activities by far right groups in Liverpool.
It says that officers have had to deal with "an increase in extremist material from Far Right Groups looking to incite hatred and seeking to divide communities appearing throughout the city".
The report said: "This included leaflets being put through doors in areas including Anfield (also Huyton in Knowsley and parts of the Wirral), stickers and posters being put around the two football grounds, on lampposts in Aigburth and parts of the City Centre (also a park in Southport as well).
"A process was put in place to enable prompt identification and recording of these incidents thereby ensuring quick removal and evidence gathering but also to monitor what groups were coming into the city and the areas and communities they were targeting."
It also repeats previous warnings about the ability of social media to amplify conspiracy theories used by extremist groups and says this has proved particularly difficult to tackle during the pandemic.
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The report said: "Conspiracy theories have historically been used by extremist groups and social media have amplified conspiracy theories in a way that we have never seen before. Far-right groups are using the Covid-19 crisis to further their objectives.
"This is manifesting in the following ways: disinformation, the spread of conspiracy theories that have gone mainstream e.g. anti-vaxx and anti-lockdown, harms against minorities including online targeted harassment campaigns, an increase in hate speech and hate crime (there has been a spike in anti-Chinese, anti-Asian, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiment) and even targeted attacks on infrastructure as in the destruction of the 5G mobile phone masts."
A series of projects, including community action groups, was helping to tackle extremism and hate crime in parts of the city, the report said, but it warned that wider economic downturn caused by the pandemic would prove a major risk factor in coming years. It also warned that there were signs that attempts to recruit young people were on the increase.
The report said: "Increased unemployment rates, local authorities having to make massive cuts because of the inevitable financial difficulties, increasing rates of mental health issues, violence and hate crimes, could all be very conducive for extremists and extremism. In the long term, the economic and social impact of Covid-19 risks alienating the key demographics that far-right groups target for recruitment."
