Police
‘forced to disclose ethnicity of suspects to counter far-right speculation’
Guidance
to combat misinformation puts pressure on police to release details, says
former senior Met officer
Rajeev
Syal and Ben Quinn
Sun 2 Nov
2025 19.43 GMT
Police
are being forced to disclose the ethnicity of suspects in response to a rise in
far-right speculation on social media, a former senior officer in the
Metropolitan police force has warned.
On Sunday
morning at 10.30am, British Transport Police said two men had been arrested
after multiple stabbings on a train in Cambridgeshire: a 32-year-old black
British national and a 35-year-old British national of Caribbean descent. The
35-year-old was released with no further action, and “was not involved” in the
attack, BTP said in a statement later on Sunday evening.
New
guidance was issued in August to combat misinformation on social media, which
spread last summer after the murder of three schoolgirls in Southport.
Campaigners
have warned that the move may encourage focus on the racial background of
suspects and lead to further rightwing conspiracy theories when information is
not released to the public.
Dal Babu,
a former chief superintendent in the UK’s biggest force, said police having to
disclose the race of suspects in incidents involving people of colour was an
“unintended consequence”.
“When the
new guidance was issued, I warned that there was a danger that there will be an
expectation for police to release information on every single occasion,” he
said.
“I have
sympathy for my former colleagues in the police. They are damned if they do and
damned if they don’t. They are under pressure because there is such intense
speculation from the far right on social media after every major incident about
the background of suspects.
“You will
not find pressure on social media to name the ethnicity of suspects when black
players are being racially abused on social media, for example. We are in a
position in our country where race is being amplified by far-right racist
groups and the police are being forced to respond. It is a worry.”
Ben
Obese-Jecty, a Conservative MP whose constituency includes Huntingdon, where
the train made an emergency stop during the stabbing incident, said it was
“sad” but necessary that the police had to focus on swiftly releasing the
ethnicities of the men arrested.
“I don’t
like it. I understand why they do it. I think they actually have to do it now,”
he said, speaking at Huntingdon station shortly after British Transport Police
released its statement on Sunday.
“And I
just think it’s sad that we’ve got to a stage where, because of the way that
people leverage social media to their own ends, to push their own agendas and
their narratives, the police have to get that information out there so that
we’re dealing with facts and normal speculation.”
Before
police released the ethnicity of the arrested men on Sunday morning,
right-leaning politicians had demanded a faster response.
Chris
Philp, the shadow home secretary, told the Telegraph: “The police should have
released identity details by now as they said should happen, and as happened in
other recent cases.” Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said on X: “We need to
know who committed these awful attacks as soon as possible.”
Far-right
social media accounts have attempted to exploit the incident. An account called
“British Patriot” – which has nearly 5,000 followers on X, including
influential rightwing figures – posted an unsubstantiated claim that a
knife-wielding man on the train had been shouting: “Allahu Akbar”.
Even
after police revealed that the two arrested suspects were British nationals,
attempts were made to suggest that information was being withheld.
Ben
Habib, the former Reform UK co-leader who has now set up a party supported by
the far-right activist known as Tommy Robinson, said that, in his mind, it was
“almost inconceivable” that the incident was not an act of terrorism. Police
said on Sunday morning: “At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that this
is a terrorist incident.”
Habib
compared the statement on Sunday morning by a senior police officer, who had
described both suspects as British, to official statements identifying the
Southport murderer as a Welshman. It was “possible” that the suspects were
British but, he said, adding that the police had not released their names, “I
will remain extremely suspicious until we get chapter and verse.”
The
guidance was developed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in
recognition of “public concerns” and to ensure police processes were “fit for
purpose in an age of rapid information spread”.
It was
announced shortly after Reform UK accused authorities of hiding the identities
and immigration status of two men – reported to be Afghan asylum seekers –
charged over the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl in Warwickshire.
In May,
when a car ploughed into crowds celebrating Liverpool FC’s winning of the
Premier League title, Merseyside police disclosed in the public interest that
the man arrested was white and British, in order to quash rumours of a
terrorist attack by an Asian man.
Decisions
on releasing such information would remain with police forces, with wider legal
and ethical considerations also taken into account, the NPCC said. Verifying a
suspect’s immigration status would be up to the Home Office, not the police.
The mayor
of London, Sadiq Khan, said it was not right for politicians to be calling for
the nationality and ethnicity of suspects to be made public – and that the
release of such information should remain a police operational matter.
He said:
“The key thing is, it is for those in charge of operations to make the decision
and make the call, rather than politicians dictating to the police to reveal
the ethnicity and the origin of the family of the person responsible.
“I don’t
think politicians should be dictating to the police when to do so, because
sometimes there are – and I’ve been involved in these – really good operational
reasons why the authorities don’t want to divulge too much information about a
suspect, because they’re doing lots of other operations searching premises.
They’re looking for conspirators and stuff so there’s often a good reason why
they don’t.”
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