Katie Hopkins looked at me during a Weekend Truth Festival and said: ‘I smell a virgin’

Published

6 months ago

June 1, 2024

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“I smell a virgin…” Katie Hopkins said, looking straight at me. “I smell lefty, pressy scum!”

The far-right commentator was addressing an audience of 500 people in a soggy tent in a rural corner of northwest England.

I was standing at the back but that didn’t stop her singling me out. The crowd theatrically booed me, as if I was a pantomime villain. I blushed.

This was one of many strange moments I witnessed at the three-day event, officially called the Weekend Truth Festival (WTF), that some may call a conspiracy theory gathering.

As well as being called out by Hopkins, I saw children chanting anti-vax slogans and had a magnet applied to my arm to prove my COVID vaccinations are the antenna of a bioweapon.

This was the first WTF and its organisers hailed it as a success.

Its programme featured talks from speakers, including celebrities of the movement like Hopkins and former Southampton footballer Matt Le Tissier, as well as workshops and other activities with dozens of RVs and tents arranged around a giant marquee.

The festival attendees, who describe themselves as part of the “freedom movement”, paid a £100 donation to see their “truth heroes”.

There are many political and ideological dividing lines in British life, but perhaps the deepest, and most damaging, is that which was on show here – when one part of the population rejects the others’ view of reality.

This summer a number of similar truther gatherings are being held across the country from Glasgow to Dorset, with the biggest having a capacity of several hundred.

That’s why I found myself in a muddy field on the first May bank holiday: to understand why a movement born in lockdown appears to be evolving out of the dark corners of the internet into real-life meet-ups like this.

My presence there was the result of careful negotiation with the organisers, who agreed to let me come and report. They wanted the world to see what it was really like.

“It’s a gathering of like-minded people who basically think alternatively to the mainstream,” said organiser Kevin Dowling, a man in his fifties with a dry sense of humour.

He and Nicola Mayoh organise regular meet-ups in Buxton, near Manchester, in the top room of a pub.

But this was much bigger, and they’d spent a long time preparing.

I asked whether this movement had longevity beyond the headline-grabbing pandemic protests.

“I think COVID woke people up to other things that go on,” Nicola said. “We’ve gravitated towards each other because we’re all very similar.”

I got lucky with where I pitched my tent – next to Theresa Clark and Andy Ryan, friends from Stockport, who met through the movement. They make unlikely conspiracists and their journey from COVID scepticism to WTF attendees was revealing.

Both were in their sixties. Theresa, a former civil servant, was wrapped up in a parka coat with a woolly hat covering her hair, while Andy was similarly attired in a padded black jacket.

They were warm and friendly, and offered me endless cups of tea from Andy’s stove.

On the first night, I found myself sitting around a blazing fire, sharing a glass of wine with them.

Theresa explained she wasn’t originally an anti-vaxxer; she made sure all her children and grandchildren had their recommended vaccinations. But then came COVID.

Living alone during lockdown, Theresa connected with online groups that led her here. “It’s been a great journey for me because I’ve met such wonderful people,” she told me.

Her path first crossed with Andy, and many of the other people who have come to Cumbria, through an activist group called Rebels on Roundabouts.

At the height of lockdown, they gathered on roundabouts and held yellow signs up to passing motorists with slogans such as “Please don’t jab kids” and “Media masking truth”.

Since the pandemic, they’ve expanded. Their Telegram group now has more than 3,000 members.

Their website currently lists events from Newcastle to Tunbridge Wells, and explains their belief that COVID was “ruthlessly exploited by a global elite through their puppet politicians and the mainstream media” and is part of a “sinister CONTROL and DEPOPULATION agenda”.

What does that all mean?

Let’s take Theresa as an example. She went from lockdown and vaccine scepticism to thinking there was a bigger conspiracy at play.

Central to that view is a concept called the Great Reset, originally a short book from the World Economic Forum (WEF) outlining the post-COVID recovery.

But many of those in the movement see it as a blueprint for a totalitarian world government headed by the WEF.

“That scared me,” Theresa said. “Is that the world that we’re aiming for?”

The Great Reset is arguably not the smartest name – it does have an air of the conspiratorial. And those at the festival were willing to connect all sorts of unconnected things – net zero, Ultra Low Emissions Zones (ULEZ) or Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) – as proof that the WEF was trying to take away our freedoms.

I pushed back on the idea that the WEF is able to control the world to that extent, suggesting it was an influential lobby group but not a shadow government.

“It’s not a fiction book, is it,” Theresa pointed out, in reference to the Great Reset.

Her views, like many others who gathered round the campfire, were deeply held.

They relished the chance to set me – the embodiment of the loathed mainstream media – straight. Behind much of their thinking, it seemed, was strong emotion.

Not least for Theresa.

Her father moved into a care home just weeks before lockdown, something she only mentioned after we had been talking for more than an hour.

“It wasn’t nice to go and visit your father and see him through the glass,” she said, tearfully.

“Those last few months, to not be able to give him the love that he deserved… You just don’t get over that.

“These are the harms the COVID lockdown did.”

That said, there were some limits to her beliefs. For instance, she was sceptical about reptilians, the idea pushed by conspiracy theorist David Icke that suggested shape-shifting lizard people control the world.

Many consider the theory antisemitic, although Icke has always strongly denied this.

Theresa admitted that it was a “bit far-fetched” for her. “But then who am I to say to somebody what you’re saying is utter rubbish. That’s their belief,” she added.

The next day, the sun was shining as Gillian England showed me the ley lines in the field behind the festival site and explained that the weather had improved because she “thanked the elementals”.

“I’m a being from a realm beyond planet Earth,” she said, as we walked through the field.

“My job is to assist the developing consciousness of humanity… I believe in the higher Galactics. I’ve got my star family that I connect to, but this is the fifth dimension and beyond.”

“And where is that?” I asked.

“Well, it’s beyond this reality.”

The Freedom Movement is a broad church that includes people like Gillian, a former NHS psychotherapist turned mystic healer. As we approached a stone circle, the divining rods in her hands started to twitch, then crossed. We had found our ley line.

You might wonder what Gilian’s new age vibe had in common with anti-lockdown protests on a roundabout, or the Great Reset, or what ley lines had to do with ULEZ.

But when COVID prompted people to do their own research, they found a world of conspiracies ready and waiting to draw them further in. People like Gillian who already had their own alternative understanding of reality and were willing to help those along the same journey.

It doesn’t mean signing up to all the exact same beliefs. Another attendee told me: “I hate that woo woo stuff. There’s loads of that here.” But they were all on the same side, against the mainstream.

“COVID woke people up,” Gillian said. “They were stuck at home, got off the rat race for a little while and started questioning.”

Down at the festival site a little later, Gillian and other adults gathered the children – mostly primary school aged – in a tent near the food stalls. They had dragon puppets, glitter and music and were teaching them to chant the freedom movement slogan: “I do not consent”.

This was the most troubling part of the festival, where legitimate free speech perhaps crossed into something darker.

Among the more troubling claims made by speakers were that COVID was an attempted genocide and a Satanist cult was planning to murder everyone. But just as quickly, a party mood returned.

Matt Le Tissier gave an entertaining talk with occasional anti-vax comments. Then it was time for drinks and dancing.

The DJ played fairly hardcore techno. The crowd ranged from young adults to pensioners and the fashion was hemp hippies meets cyber ravers. Theresa waved as she boogied away.

This is perhaps the true counterculture of the UK now. It may not have its own music or fashion, but it does have its own Podcasters, Twitter users and YouTubers who reach hundreds of thousands.

On the final day, I wandered down to the main tent. A man had put up a large placard advertising the formation of a “people’s party”. Many people here insist they are neither on the left nor right, but many of the talking points echo the far-right.

Mark Steele, a self-styled “weapons expert”, was one of the speakers. He served time in prison back in the 1990s for shooting a teenage girl in the head.

He believes that ULEZ cameras can be used in conjunction with vaccinations to turn people into literal zombies and cast doubt on Rishi Sunak’s Britishness.

As we spoke, he held a magnet to my arm to prove my COVID vaccination was the antenna of a bioweapon. If a ULEZ camera activated a beam at the right pulse it would be “carnage”, he warned.

After packing up my tent, I caught up with Nicola and Kevin who were delighted with how it had gone.

When I said I found some elements surprisingly aggressive, Kevin’s response was that there “has to be a bit of edginess” because as a society we are facing “difficult conversations and difficult times”.

He also reminded me that I wanted to use my visit to test the “political climate and how people are feeling about things”.

That’s true. And what I found was a wider sense of alienation from the main parties, with several attendees talking of finding candidates to stand as independents in the general election.

Hopkins was the final speaker and I followed the rapturous crowd into the main tent to watch her.

Theresa and Andy were there, enjoying the show, although Theresa said she felt sorry for me when Hopkins called me a virgin.

After saying my goodbyes, I watched them walk up the hill in the twilight, hoods up, carrying their camp chairs, readying themselves for another evening by the fire.

While they had lives and families outside, in that moment this was their people, and this was their place.

UK

Five people guilty in case of mistaken-identity double murder of teenage boys

Published

6 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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Five people guilty in case of mistaken-identity double murder of teenage boys

Four teenagers and a 45-year-old man have been found guilty of murdering two boys, aged 15 and 16, who were attacked with machetes in a case of mistaken identity.

The convictions follow a five-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.

The jury heard how Max Dixon and Mason Rist were killed in a case of mistaken identity on 27 January, after being wrongly identified as being responsible for a house attack in the Hartcliffe area of the city earlier that evening.

Antony Snook, 45, Riley Tolliver, 18, and three boys aged 15, 16 and 17 were all on trial each charged with two counts of murder.

As the jury foreman returned the guilty verdicts, none of the defendants showed any reaction from the dock, as they sat impassively and stared straight ahead.

The fatal stabbings in Knowle West lasted just 33 seconds – with both boys suffering what the court heard were “unsurvivable” injuries and “instant severe blood loss”.

Both died in hospital in the early hours of 28 January.

Detective Superintendent Gary Haskins, the case’s senior investigating officer from Avon and Somerset Police, told Sky News that Max and Mason had nothing to do with the house attack.

“Those boys were not known to their attackers, they were best friends, two beautiful children just going about their lives and attacked for no reason whatsoever,” he said.

Much of the prosecution’s case was based on CCTV and doorbell videos, including a camera on Mason’s own house which captured footage of the knife attack against him.

The pair were seen leaving Mason’s home at around 11.15pm and were going for a pizza.

Prosecutor Ray Tully KC told the jury that the boys were set upon by the group who had been travelling in Snook’s Audi Q2.

He said the group were “out for revenge”, “acting as a pack” to hunt down those responsible and “tooled up” with fearsome weapons.

After the attackers fled, Max and Mason were left bleeding in the street.

The investigation involved more than 230 police officers and staff – with thousands of pieces of evidence analysed.

Hundreds mourned victims at school

The teenage victims were in year 11 together at the Oasis Academy John Williams secondary school and were preparing to sit their GCSEs this summer.

The school’s headteacher Victoria Boomer-Clark told Sky News that everyone rallied to support fellow pupils and staff.

She said: “After the boys were tragically murdered, for us first and foremost we were thinking about the families and how they were coping with the absolute tragedy and shock of that.

“I can remember trying to prepare for that Monday morning and my memories now are how exceptionally strong our young people are and how we have a real sense of community.

“Unbeknownst to us the young people had arranged to hold a vigil on the playground during breaktime on that first Monday. We had hundreds of young people and staff coming together in silence.”

Ms Boomer-Clark said the boys would have attended school prom this summer.

“We had a wall that was lit up in red for Mason and Liverpool football club and a wall in blue for Park Knowle Football Club,” she said. “The year group came together and supported each other through it.”

Detective had never seen ‘horrific’ weapons before

The murders came before a new law was introduced banning ownership of zombie-style knives and machetes.

Detective Superintendent Gary Haskins said: “The weapons used in the attack on Mason and Max were simply horrific.

“I’ve been a detective for many, many years and I’ve had the misfortune of investigating some serious offences.

“In all my service I’ve not seen a weapon like the one we saw used on those two boys.

“There is no place for a weapon of that type in society for any reason whatsoever.”

The detective praised the boy’s families, who attended court throughout the trial.

He added: “I’m humbled by the families involved in this investigation. They’ve been at court every day, they’ve seen things at court that no parent should ever be exposed to. They saw the attacks on their children, but they maintain their dignity, their courage and their love for their family.

“How can you replace what they’ve lost? They’ve lost two beautiful sons, and I can only hope that the verdicts will bring some form of closure. It will never close completely.”

Snook will be sentenced on 19 November at Bristol Crown Court.

The other four defendants will be sentenced on 16 December following the preparation of pre-sentence reports.

Police are continuing to investigate the Hartcliffe house attack and search for those responsible.

UK

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

8 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the quarter.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Improving economic growth is at the heart of everything I am seeking to achieve, which is why I am not satisfied with these numbers.

“At my budget, I took the difficult choices to fix the foundations and stabilise our public finances.

“Now we are going to deliver growth through investment and reform to create more jobs and more money in people’s pockets, get the NHS back on its feet, rebuild Britain and secure our borders in a decade of national renewal,” Ms Reeves added.

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

UK

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is ‘growing in popularity’

Published

8 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is 'growing in popularity'

“If you are a member of something, it means you’ve accepted membership. Anything with ‘ship’ on the end, it’s giving you a clue: it’s telling you that’s maritime law. That means you’ve entered into a contract.”

This isn’t your standard legal argument and it is becoming clear that I am dealing with an unusual way of looking at the world.

I’m in the library of a hotel in Leicestershire, a wood-panelled room with warm lighting, and Pete Stone, better known as Sovereign Pete, is explaining how “the system” works. Mr Stone is in his mid-50, bald with a goatee beard and wearing, as he always does for public appearances, a black T-shirt and black jeans.

With us are six other people, mainly dressed in neat jumpers. They’re members of the Sovereign Project (SP), an organisation Mr Stone founded in 2020, which, he says, now has more than 20,000 paying members.

As arcane as this may sound, it represents a worldview that is becoming more influential – and causing problems for authorities. Loosely, they’re defined as “sovereign citizens” or “freemen on the land”.

Their fundamental point is that nobody is required to obey laws they have not specifically consented to – especially when it comes to tax. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK across platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Telegram.

Increasingly, they are coming into conflict with governments and the law. Sovereign citizens have ended up in the High Court in recent months, challenging the legalities of tax bills and losing on both occasions.

In October, four people were sentenced to prison for the attempted kidnapping of an Essex coroner, who they saw as acting unlawfully. The self-appointed “sheriffs” attempted to force entry to the court, one of them demanding: “You guys have been practising fraud!”

The Sovereign Project is not connected to any of those cases, nor does it promote any sort of political action, let alone violence.

Instead, they are focused on issues like questioning the obligation to pay taxes, as Mr Stone explains, referencing the feudal system that operated in the Middle Ages.

“Do you know about the feudal system when people were slaves and were forced to pay tax?” he asks.

“Now, unless the feudal system still operates today, and we still have serfs and slaves, then the only way that you can pay taxes is to have a contract, you have to agree to it and consent to it.”

Another member, Karl Deans, a 43-year-old property developer who runs the SP’s social media, says: “We’re not here to dodge tax.”

Local government tends to be a target beyond just demands for tax. Mr Stone speaks of “council employee crimes”.

I ask whether, considering the attempted kidnapping in Essex, there is a danger that people will listen to these accusations of crimes by councils and act on them.

“Well that’s proved,” Mr Stone says. “We only deal with facts.”

Evidence suggests this approach is becoming an issue for councils across the UK, as people search online for ways to avoid paying tax.

Sky News analysis shows that out of 374 council websites covering Great Britain, at least 172 (46%) have pages responding to sovereign citizen arguments around avoiding paying council tax. They point out that liability for council tax is not dependent on consent, or a contract, and instead relies on the Local Government Finance Act 1992, voted on by Parliament.

But the Sovereign Project’s worldview extends beyond council tax. It is deeply anti-establishment, at times conspiratorial. Stone suggests the summer riots may have been organised by the government.

“The sovereign fraternity operates above all of this,” he says. “We look down at the world like a chessboard. We see what’s going on.”

He explains that, really, the UK government isn’t actually in control: there is a shadow government above them.

“These are the people who control government,” he explains.

“A lot of people say this could be the crown council of 13, this could be a series of Italian families.”

Professor Christine Sarteschi, an expert in sovereign citizens at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, says she’s worried about the threat sovereign citizens may pose to the rule of law, especially in the US where guns are readily available.

“The movement is growing and that’s evidenced by seeing it in different countries and hearing about different cases. The concern is that they will become emboldened and commit acts of violence,” she says.

“Because sovereigns truly believe in their ideas and if they feel very aggrieved by, you know, the government or whomever they think is oppressing them or controlling them… they can become emotionally involved.

“That emotional involvement sometimes leads to violence in some cases, or the belief that they have the power to attempt to overthrow a government in some capacity.”

Much of this seems to be based on an underlying and familiar frustration at the state of this country and of the world.

Mr Stone echoes some of the characteristic arguments also made by the right, that there is “two-tier policing”, that refugees arriving in the UK are “young men of fighting age”, that the government is using “forced immigration to destroy the country”.

Another SP member, retired investment banker David Hopgood, 61, says: “I firmly believe it is the true Englishman – and woman – of this country – that has the power to unlock this madness that’s happening in the West.

“We’ve got the Magna Carta – all these checks and balances. We just need to pack up, go down to Parliament and say: It’s time to dismiss you. You’re not fit for purpose.”

The members of the Sovereign Project are unfailingly patient and polite in explaining their understanding of the world.

But there is no doubt they hold a deeply radical view, one that is apparently growing in popularity.