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”.
The Sovereign Project claims to now have 20,000 paying members in the UK
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!”
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Moment ‘cult’ tries to kidnap coroner
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.”
Sky’s Tom Cheshire (second left) meets ‘Sovereign Pete’ (left) and other groups members
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.”
Violence broke out in numerous towns and cities in August. Pic: PA
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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.”
Professor Christine Sarteschi
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.
The US Congress has written to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor requesting an interview with him in connection with his “long-standing friendship” with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said it is investigating the late financier’s “sex trafficking operations”.
It told Andrew: “The committee is seeking to uncover the identities of Mr Epstein’s co-conspirators and enablers, and to understand the full extent of his criminal operations.
“Well-documented allegations against you, along with your long-standing friendship with Mr Epstein, indicate that you may possess knowledge of his activities relevant to our investigation.
“In the interest of justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, we request that you co-operate with the committee’s investigation by sitting for a transcribed interview with the committee.”
The congressional committee wants to understand any ‘activities’ relevant to its Epstein investigation. PA file pic
Virginia Giuffre, who died in April, accused Andrew of sexually assaulting her after being introduced by Epstein. Andrew has always vehemently denied her accusations.
The letter to the former prince, is addressed to Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, the home he agreed last week to leave, when he was stripped of his royal titles.
It outlines his “close relationship” with Epstein and references a recently revealed 2011 email exchange in which Andrew told him “we are in this together”.
And it says the committee has identified “financial records containing notations such as ‘massage for Andrew’ that raise serious questions”.
Read more:
Andrew’s fall from grace
Can William escape Andrew questions in Brazil?
The committee said Andrew’s links to Epstein “further confirms our suspicion that you may have valuable information about the crimes committed by Mr Epstein and his co-conspirators”.
The letter, signed by 16 members of Congress, requested Andrew responds by 20 November.
It came as the King officially stripped his disgraced brother of both his HRH style and his prince title.
The move followed the publication Ms Giuffre’s posthumous memoirs, and the US government’s release of documents from the paedophile’s estate.
Ms Giuffre alleged she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times – once at convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s home in London, once in Epstein’s address in Manhattan, and once on the disgraced financier’s private island, Little St James.
The incident at Maxwell’s home allegedly occurred when Ms Giuffre was 17 years old.
Epstein took his own life in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
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