‘My 14-year-old son was groomed into the far right while I thought he was playing video games’

Lucy* thought her teenage son was busy in his room playing video games and talking to friends online – but in reality he was getting groomed into the far right under her very roof.

“He was 14, but I didn't find out for a couple of years,” she tells The Independent. “I had no idea. I just noticed a lot of changes within him. His attitude. His general wellbeing. Our relationship fell apart. His schoolwork started to suffer.”

Her comments come in the wake of an explosion of far-right anti-immigrant violence across the UK earlier in the month. Rioters attacked mosques, ambushed riot police, set fire to a hotel housing migrants and torched a public library and Citizens Advice Bureau building in the aftermath of the fatal stabbing of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport at the end of July.

There have been multiple incidents of ethnic minorities being attacked on the streets. In the aftermath of the Southport stabbing, false information spread rapidly online, wrongly claiming the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker who came to the UK on a small boat crossing.

Recounting her son’s radicalisation process, Lucy says he never shared his opinions on politics or current affairs for the first two years he was involved in the far right but his deeply concerning views then began to surface.

“It was all around immigration and religion,” she adds. “I thought this seems very, very out there, very not like him. He did not make racist comments per se. It wasn't so much anti-Islam. It was questioning passages in the Quran, saying that they meant something different, and as much as I argued with him, that just created a bigger divide between himself and myself.”

She says his speech started to sound very “scripted” as she explains this is one of the things parents are told to look out for. Lucy also recalls her son making misogynistic comments towards her: telling her to “get in the kitchen where you belong”.

“He was just agitated,” she says. “He was irritable. His whole personality changed. Now, my son has a very bubbly, a very silly personality. But yeah, it was just argumentative, irritable, angry. But then, obviously, I know now, it’s because he was consuming hateful material all the time so obviously that is going to impact an individual.”

His long-term friends began to fall “by the wayside” and he started spending more time indoors and playing less sports during this period, Lucy adds.

“He wouldn’t spend time with us in the home,” she says. “ Even just simple conversations could result in arguments. We couldn’t have things like the news on. Or anything like that, because that would result in an argument because we disagreed.”

There were around two months when her son became open about his views before he was referred to the government’s Prevent programme via his college and assigned an “intervention provider” who helps with the deradicalisation process.

“They can offer counternarratives and unpick the radicalisation,” Lucy says. “He actually left quite quickly.”

She explains her son’s far-right activity predominantly took place online but he did go to protests towards the end of his involvement. To this day, she remains unsure which groups were behind the demonstrations due to her son not wanting to delve into the details of his activism to protect her, she says.

“I found out when he was 17,” she says. Her suspicions were raised and she saw him at a rally. “So when I found out, I still didn’t fully understand what he was involved in. Coming from an area in the sticks, I thought extremism was big attacks from the IRA and Isis.”

She says she felt incredibly confused about what was going on – with the ordeal causing tension between herself and her partner, her son’s stepfather, because she was consumed with anxiety about her son.

Lucy and her son now volunteer for an organisation called Exit Hate Trust which helps people who want to leave the far right, with both providing training and Lucy also supporting parents whose children have been radicalised.

“It’s hard to say, ‘My son or daughter has got these racist extreme views and opinions,’” she says. “And so often, they very much find themselves isolated away from everybody and they have got no one to talk to. So, I’m the first port of call and I can help offer them a little bit of advice with things like de-escalation of arguments and explaining the situation so they understand radicalisation.”

Lucy explains that her son’s demeanour has returned to how he was before he became involved in the far right, and that he is unrecognisable from then to now.

“The changes that I see – and not just with my son, with all my cases where their children can completely change – it is a bit like brainwashing,” she says.

Anne Craanen, senior research and policy manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says parents should look out for specific signs, to work out if their child has become involved in the far right.

“The signs would be when a child is not doing well: they may be withdrawn, isolated, and not interested in their usual hobbies,” says Ms Craanen, whose organisation tackles extremism and disinformation.

“That comes with identity shrinkage. Their identity fuses with a particular ideology such as the far right.”

She says parents should also look out for their child engaging in “othering”. She says extremism is centred around an “in group” and an “out group” and those who are opposed to your views being cast as the enemy.

“Your child may be becoming more black and white about things,” she adds. “Parents need to have conversations with their children about their online activity.”

Asked about the dangers of a child’s far-right activity escalating, she says it can be hard to predict when an individual will turn their radical ideas into action.

*Lucy’s name has been changed to protect her identity