Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity,
A secretive Home Office propaganda outfit founded by a former MI6 officer is actively working to control narratives around incidents involving migrants and rising tensions, a bombshell report reveals.
The Research, Information and Communications Unit, or RICU, has been exposed advising police on how to portray protesters and intervening in the aftermath of brutal attacks by migrants to prevent statements that might inflame public anger over mass immigration failures.
This comes as fresh confirmation of suspicions raised after the attack on vulnerable special needs man Stephen Ogilvie in Belfast. Sources now confirm the unit’s role in managing family liaison and messaging in such cases. The pattern fits a broader shift where government “nudge” operations once focused on enforcing COVID compliance have pivoted to shielding open borders policies from scrutiny – and are now being hardened into formal crisis powers.
The Daily Mail reports that RICU was set up in 2007 by the late Charles Farr, a former MI6 officer, under the Prevent counter-terrorism banner. It operates from Home Office headquarters and draws on tactics from the old Information Research Department, the post-war propaganda unit used to counter communist influence.
Its methods include planting media stories, deploying undercover operatives, and shaping online conversations in targeted communities.
Recent operations show the unit extending far beyond its original remit. During unrest in Belfast following the stabbing attack on Stephen Ogilvie by Sudanese asylum seeker Hadi Alodid, RICU worked with the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s C3 intelligence unit.
A source described the effort: “They are working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s C3 intelligence unit to identify those posting the online ‘calls to protest’ in Belfast and other areas, as well as giving strategic messages to the police to ensure that the protesters were portrayed as unsympathetic thugs, rather than activists, and effecting behavioural change.”
The same source noted RICU’s involvement with family statements in volatile incidents. “RICU made sure that the liaison team dealing with the family were well briefed.” Another observation: “You can see their fingerprints all over the statements released by the families of victims in these volatile situations – they usually have a similar tone.”
This aligns with what was noted right after the Belfast incident. The family statement released in the wake of the attack on Stephen Ogilvie came across as oddly generic and scripted, using placeholder phrasing such as “our loved one” and quickly pivoting from shock to calls for calm plus emphasis on migrants’ contributions rather than raw, unfiltered grief or pointed questions about what had happened. It did not read like the spontaneous words of devastated relatives.
The Mail also notes that RICU was involved with the aftermath of the murder of Henry Nowak by Vickrum Digwa, again providing strategic input to police handling the family.
The interventions align with long-standing criticisms that RICU applies uneven standards. Sir William Shawcross, in his 2023 review of Prevent, observed: “The bar for what RICU includes on Islamism looks to be relatively high, whereas the bar for what is included on the extreme Right-wing is comparably low.”
The unit has flagged mainstream cultural consumption – watching Michael Portillo’s programmes, reading Shakespeare, Chaucer or Milton, or books documenting grooming gang scandals – as potential indicators of far-Right susceptibility. It even linked Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg to sympathetic audiences.
Professor Anthony Glees described the outfit’s position: “The unit that produced this report is called RICU. It’s based in the Home Office but it’s in that kind of shadowy area between what the Home Office does and what the security service MI5 ought to be doing.”
A Home Office spokesman offered the standard line: “RICU provides analysis on extremist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet to inform the UK’s counter terrorism system. We cannot comment on its operations.”
The unit has pushed for expanded recording of non-crime hate incidents, measures later scrapped after public backlash over their chilling effect on ordinary speech. It has also claimed that discussion of grooming gangs in Pakistani communities is exploited by the far-Right to stir hatred.
This is not isolated activity. Government narrative management operations have multiplied. A 2025 examination detailed how teams such as the National Security and Online Information Team monitor “concerning narratives” on social media and flag material to platforms for removal, particularly content critical of migration policy during periods of unrest.
An elite police unit tracks anti-migrant posts. Officials stated they make “no apologies for flagging to platforms content which is contrary to their own terms of service and which can result in violent disorder on our streets.”
The same infrastructure that once deployed propagandistic fear tactics to drive mass compliance during the COVID period has been repurposed. What began as emergency messaging around a virus has evolved into tools for managing public reaction to the consequences of sustained high immigration and associated crime.
We have also seen the Prevent apparatus targeted firmly at British people, and even children, who have expressed concern about mass migration.
This apparatus is also now being formalised and expanded under the banner of “crisis response.” In the wake of the Belfast unrest sparked by the attack on Stephen Ogilvie, ministers have moved to give Ofcom sweeping new authority under the Online Safety Act to pressure platforms into rapid removal of content labelled “false information” or inciting disorder during declared crises.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall announced the government will “lay in Parliament an update to the Online Safety Act requiring services to take quicker action to remove illegal content circulating during times of crisis.”
Ofcom has already issued open letters to platforms citing spikes in content tied to the Northern Ireland events and demanding enhanced, crisis-specific moderation measures – without requiring fresh parliamentary approval.
The definition of “crisis” is deliberately broad, drawing on the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and covering threats to welfare, security or public order. This builds directly on the informal narrative-shaping RICU has conducted for years, now also augmented by a new £115 million PoliceAI centre equipped with live facial recognition, predictive analytics and automated real-time content flagging.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss directly addressed the underlying dynamic. She stated that mass migration “is being weaponised to undermine Western civilisation.” Truss continued: “They want to undermine the family. They want to undermine the nation state. And people in Britain are saying ‘we’ve had enough of this.'”
She added that institutions have been corrupted by a DEI mentality focused on group outcomes rather than equal treatment under law, with the response being suppression of discussion and attacks on those highlighting the role of mass migration.
The through-line is clear. Legitimate public concern over policy outcomes – crime rates, community cohesion, strained services – is reframed as dangerous extremism requiring state-managed behavioural change. Protesters become “thugs.” Family grief is shaped into generic calls for calm that emphasise migrant contributions.
Online speech is monitored and throttled. Cultural touchstones are recast as radicalisation risks when they appear on the “wrong” side of the narrative. Now “crisis” declarations provide the trigger to accelerate these controls with regulator muscle and AI tools.
This apparatus operates with minimal transparency and little accountability to elected representatives or the public whose taxes fund it. Critics inside Whitehall have described it as out of control. Its expansion from countering Al Qaeda propaganda into domestic speech management on immigration – and now into codified crisis powers – represents a fundamental shift toward treating British citizens’ unfiltered reactions as the primary threat.
Britain faces real pressures from decades of rapid demographic change and enforcement failures. Honest examination of those pressures does not equate to hatred. Suppressing that examination through coordinated narrative control only deepens distrust and guarantees that underlying problems fester.
Citizens retain the right to discuss the impacts of policy without state operatives scripting responses or directing police to rebrand dissent.
The revelations about RICU and the accelerating “Ministry of Truth” machinery confirm what many already sensed: the tools built for one set of emergencies have been turned inward to protect another set of political choices.
Restoring open debate and accountability requires dismantling these layers of managed perception and returning to straightforward governance that prioritises the security and cohesion of the existing population.
