Far-right protesters need to 'have throats slit', Labour councillor allegedly told crowd

A Labour councillor said far-right protesters should have their throats slit and drew his finger across his throat at an anti-racism protest following the Southport murders, a court has heard.

Ricky Jones, 58, who is on trial for encouraging violent disorder, called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" at the protest in east London, last August. Jones, a borough councillor in Dartford, Kent, from 2019, had been warned by his party to stay away from the event in Walthamstow, and was suspended the day after the alleged incident.

A video of Jones speaking to the "tinderbox" crowd, dressed in a black polo top and surrounded by cheering supporters, went viral on social media after the protest. The councillor said: "They are disgusting Nazi fascists.

We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all." The demonstration had been organised in response to plans for a far-right march outside nearby Waltham Forest Immigration Bureau, jurors at Snaresbrook Crown Court were told. It followed the nationwide violent disorder that occurred last summer after the Southport murders when Axel Rudakubana killed three girls and attempted to murder eight others at a summer holiday Taylor Swift-themed event.

Prosecutor Ben Holt said Jones used "inflammatory, rabble-rousing language in the throng of a crowd that we will hear described as a tinderbox". Read more on Sky News:'Little angels' remembered, a year onMissed chances to stop RudakubanaSouthport stabbings survivor describes ordeal Opening the case on Monday, Mr Holt said: "Last summer, three young girls were killed at a dance party in Southport.

"There was some hysteria... Some of that grief manifested itself in anger, and regrettably, violence." The incidents brought out counter-protests, one of which Jones decided to go to, the prosecutor said.

"He attended in the face of considered advice not to do so. At Walthamstow that day, rumours had spread that there was going to be a protest outside an immigration centre.

"During that event, he made a speech, amplified through a public address system, to the crowd. "He called the other side disgusting Nazi fascists.

He said that their throats needed to be slit. He drew his finger along his throat as he said that.

"This, in a setting where, we suggest, violence could readily have been anticipated. "We ask rhetorically, what did Mr Jones think was going to happen?" Days before the protest, the Labour Party wrote urging him to follow police advice "not to take part in, attend or encourage others to attend, any sort of demonstration or counter demonstration".

Jones, of Dartford, who denies one count of encouraging violent disorder, told police he was "sorry" he made the comments "in the heat of the moment.