set up to end the war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist forces that started in 2014.
However, by then it had been copied and posted elsewhere and, within a few hours, had been viewed more than two million times on social media, according to BBC Verify analysis.We found that on X, within an hour of the original post, a screenshot had been posted by an account calling for mass deportations. This would go on to have more than 130,000 views in total.
, an online news website based in India called Upuknews shared a retweet of Eddie Murray’s post, which it described as "confirmed". This had more than half a million views.By now, online speculation about the suspect was running high. There was a huge appetite to know what had happened in Southport.At the same time as Upuknews’s tweet, the Murray screenshot was posted on X by the co-leader of far-right group Britain First (
) Paul Golding. He claimed that the evidence was "stacking up that the Southport attack was carried out by a migrant".His post received nearly 110,000 views.
, just 13 minutes later, Reform Party activist Nicholas Lissack tweeted he had "confirmed the authenticity of the post made by the father of the children who were present at the Southport Attack".
Murray's screenshot was also reposted by a white nationalist who wanted "the border closed" and made a call to "deport these savages".It defines properties as being "at risk" when the yearly chance of flooding is greater than one-in-1,000.
Currently, the EA says that 4.6 million homes and businesses are at risk of surface flooding, with London the most affected region.This is a 43% rise on its previous estimate, but this is almost entirely due to improved datasets and computer modelling techniques, rather than a real-world increase in flood risk.
However, the EA says that climate change could raise the number of properties at risk of surface flooding to around 6.1 million by the middle of the century.It is well-documented that a