Anti-vaxxers are monstering refugee hotels
Taking a cue from the far-right, Covid conspiracists are now hassling asylum seekers
Dear Scout subscribers, today we’re looking at a worrying development: anti-vaxxers have begun copying the sinister far-right practice of hassling asylum seekers at temporary accommodation. It’s another instance in which anti-vaxxers, many of whom would have once counted themselves as hippies, have lurched to the far-right. If you like this article please subscribe for free stories from Scout — and tell your friends.
The blue helmets are coming to get you
One of the first stories that we reported at Scout was the trend of far-right activists going to hotels housing refugees to monster the staff and guests. We wrote about how they travel to motorway Premier Inns and dingy suburban Ibises to get in the faces of hotel workers, yelling that asylum seekers staying there are secretly ISIS fighters in the vanguard of a foreign invasion. The most prominent activists doing this are members of Britain First, the far-right political party, and influencers like Amanda Smith (aka Yorkshire Rose), and other agitators from the white nationalist scene.
Last week, that changed. Hardcore anti-vaxxers best known for campaigning against Covid jabs and Bill Gates have now turned their attention to monstering refugees at hotels. It is another instance in which anti-vaxxers have found common ground with the far-right, having stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them at drag queen story hour protests this summer and sharing pages of conspiracy theorist publications like The Light.
On Saturday afternoon, an anti-vaxx influencer called Archie Jackson filmed a visit to Hull’s Royal Hotel, which is being used to house asylum seekers. Jackson, as the blogger Mohammed Shafiq has noticed, is a conspiracy theorist who made a series of videos in which he refused to pay tax for petrol, instead paying a sum at the till that he thought fair.
In Hull, Jackson livestreamed himself shouting at members of staff and refugees, just like Britain First and Yorkshire Rose. The only difference was in the motivation behind Jackson’s visit. The far-right activists targeting hotels tend to believe in the great replacement, a conspiracy theory which believes sinister elites (frequently this just means Jews) are trying to eradicate the white race by organising the immigration of Asians and Africans into Europe. Using hotels as temporary accommodation for refugees, they say, is proof of the great replacement. Jackson, on the other hand, was shouting about something else.
Here’s an extract of what he said in Hull:
“Who are these people? They're not refugees. They're not women. We've got UN soldiers being brought in by Serco. These UN soldiers are being kept here, UN soldiers ready to be unleashed against the British public. Asylum seekers here! I've not seen a single woman. Civil war is coming. Everyone knows what's going on, we’re not stupid.”
As Jackson marched away from the Royal Hotel’s run-down Victorian facade, he pointed his camera at the front entrance. A young man in a t-shirt came out to vape on the doorstep. “There’s another one,” Jackson snarled. “A UN soldier ready to be unleashed on the streets of Britain.” He went to ask a police officer to intervene, and after ranting for a couple minutes the constable interjected: “It’s way beyond my pay grade, mate.”
This may sound like the ramblings of a loner with a diminishing hold on reality, but it’s not just Jackson who’s in on this. A Midlands-based activist called Kidderminster Carl has been showing up at his local hotels to ask staff about UN soldiers (“there’s nothing dodgy going on, don’t worry”, said a bemused manager at the Mercure in Bewdley). And the idea is circulating in conspiracy theorist channels online. An anti-vaxx influencer called Laura Nina has been livestreaming about “boats with young, fighting-fit men” crossing the Channel to invade Britain. “They are getting ready for something,” she said. “It’s clear as day.”
David Kurten, founder of the anti-lockdown Heritage Party, tweeted a photo of a Channel boat and said the men on it were “soldiers, not refugees”, although it’s not clear if he was referring to the UN conspiracy theory or the right-wing narrative that many refugees are “fighting age males” exploiting our immigration system.
The conspiracy theory that a secret army of UN soldiers is poised to invade and enslave the native population isn’t new. For decades in the US, militia groups have feared that the New World Order is building underground bases and whizzing around in black helicopters, preparing to arrest patriotic, Second Amendment-loving Americans en masse and murder them in concentration camps. “UN soldiers” appears to have metastasised to incorporate a conspiracy theory once endemic to the US and a far-right idea that refugees are crossing the Channel in order to wreck British society.
That’s not to say that all hardcore anti-vaxxers are going to the far-right, nor that everyone in the far-right is ready to team up with the anti-vaxxers. Indeed, Mark Collett, the self-described “Nazi sympathiser” who runs Patriotic Alternative, released a video last week complaining that anti-vaxxers are obsessed with conspiracy theories like 5G and not enough of them are willing to accept the great replacement. Still, we know that activists in both worlds have found issues they can both campaign on, like drag queens and Satanic Ritual Abuse, and are happy to team up with each other.
Jackson, in his tour around the outside of the Royal Hotel spotted a smoking area walled off by metal pedestrian banners covered with white screens. This, he said, was proof that something that the government and the Hampshire-based outsourcing company Serco are hiding a covert army in the rooms of a three-star hotel next to Hull train station.
So why has an American conspiracy theory from the 1990s suddenly popped up in Britain? It might have something to do with an anti-vaxxer called David McAlonan. A week before Jackson completed his daring reconnaissance mission in Hull, McAlonan began sending livestreams about UN soldiers.
“These hostels and hotels are a front for what you are made to believe is refugees, immigrants,” he said. “But they’re not refugees, they’re actually United Nations soldiers. They're being taken by coach to all parts of the country. They're coming across the water in the shape of immigrants, ready for the war with the people… It’s gonna be martial law. That’s what’s coming. The proof is there.”
McAlonan’s videos were spotted by TruthHurts, a digital sleuth who keeps a close eye on anti-vaxx social media and appear to be the first British mention of UN soldiers and refugee hotels (although if you’ve seen an earlier example, please get in touch by replying to this email). Archie Jackson saw McAlonan’s video, which appeared on August 15th, and posted: “We all need to find these hotels in our towns and cities.”
So who is McAlonan? Is he a master ideologue of the anti-vaxx movement? On his Facebook profile, he says he’s from Scotland, and lists his hometown as Bellshill, Lanarkshire. According to old press reports, in 2001 a man named David McAlonan, whose address was Bellshill, Lanarkshire was convicted of masterminding a massive fake designer clothing scam, and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Are there two David McAlonans or are they the same person? I asked the anti-vaxx McAlonan on Facebook, but he blocked me. I suppose we’ll never know!
Another excellent article. What WILL they start conspiring about next?!
Who is the editor obviously not a real one , these fake news journalists are hiding the truth , they fling the words conspiracy theorists around like confetti, people are waking up and these workers for the élite know it . When someone uses words like people are being monstered its obvious they are not a journalist