Thread by @bobfrombrockley

🦠 Starting a new thread on COVID conspiracy theories and denialism.🦠

The virus has created an opportunity for far right groups to get purchase in the mainstream...

An anti-mask rally in Ireland this week was organised by an anti-vaxx group Health Freedom Ireland, the hard right UKIP-style Irish Freedom Party, & Yellow Vests Ireland. It was attended by several neo-Nazi activists, many armed. the-beacon.ie/2020/08/22/arr… socialistparty.ie/2020/08/report…

The rally was organised with support from the German fascist group Querdenken-711, which has links to the AfD and Holocaust denial. See @TheBeaconIrl: the-beacon.ie/2020/08/22/iri…

(You can see the anti-maskers, ironically mostly masked as they’re engaged in violence, attacking counter-protestors here:

https://twitter.com/TheBeaconIrl/status/1298259068692267014

…Also at the rally was barrister Una McGurk, a supporter of the Irish Freedom Party, who unbelievably sits on Ireland’s asylum appeal tribunal. McGurk is a supporter of the most wingnutty, antisemitic fringe of the anti-vaccine movement, including Sacha Stone. See @masi_asylum

https://twitter.com/grannies4equal/status/1297531480718139392

…On Sacha Stone, see @GregoryDavisHNH and @hopenothate’s report: hopenothate.org.uk/2020/07/01/bri… (HT @grannies4equal) He uses David Icke-style esoteric antisemitic language: fascist ideas package for a New Age “spiritual” audience…

Turning to a difference part of the COVID denialist scene: far right conspiracy theorist William Engdahl says the “color revolution” in Belarus is because Lukashenko defied Bill Gates, the WHO & other ((globalists)) by not locking in response to COVID.

(If you don’t know of Engdahl, he’s a long-time associate of the fascist LaRouche movement, who publishes in far right sites such as Veterans Today, Voltaire Network and GlobalResearch.)

Here’s Engdahl’s weird COVID19/Belarus take being shared by Mark Crispin Miller, a 9/11 Truther and fab of MMR scammer Andrew Wakefield, showing how people who believe one conspiracy theory of them believe another.

…Mark Crispin Miller is the advisory board of the UK-based Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (SPM), whose main goal is denying Russian and Syrian chemical attacks, whether in Salisbury or Douma

louisproyect.org/2018/04/15/lon…

(Although the SPM seems increasingly focused on promoting a COVID denialist message too, along with their fellow chemical weapons truther Peter Hitchenss)

That’s it for now. Key point is that the mix of suspicion and credulity driving conspiracy theories is often capitalised on by fascism and has had a big boost as people look for answers to the current virus crisis.

Part 3

The “Unite for Freedom” anti-mask march in London this weekend features some of the same names as the Dublin one above, including Delores Cahill of the far right Irish Freedom Party

...the other speakers include Sherri Tenpenny (another Andrew Wakefield supporter), “natural healer” Andrew Kaufman, and Eric Nepute (a chiropractor who promotes using tonic water against Covid) snopes.com/news/2020/04/1… Once again, it’s fascism meets new-age spiritualism.

...another speaker is Kate Shemirani, a “natural nurse” who uses anti-vaxx themes to introduce followers to more extreme antisemitic conspiracy theories. Again see @hopenothate: hopenothate.org.uk/2020/07/01/bri…

...and of course Piers Corbyn. See @Pabloite: tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2020/08/27/dav…

...but the real star is David Icke, who probably is the most influential hardcore antisemite in the UK marlonsolomon.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/is-…

https://twitter.com/supergutman/status/1298755103437066241

UPDATE: A British Union of Fascists flag flown at today’s anti-vaxx rally in London

https://twitter.com/Pabloite/status/1299725126267797506

Along with various other conspiracists:

https://twitter.com/JoeMulhall_/status/1299683858896637953

Big overlap between Syria chemical weapons truthers and Coronavirus truthers

https://twitter.com/SyriaUK/status/1299745735366397952

PS Here’s my previous thread on this stuff:

https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/1258809359456501762

Another data point on the convergence of the hard right and COVID denialism (HT @pritchard_ellie)

https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1299682759850577920

And in case you missed this thread (the usual denialists in the replies are saying this is photoshopped, while Q fans are crowing about their presence)

https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1299732724119465986

And:

https://twitter.com/jmendelsohn77/status/1300883897815912449

This is a very good concise analysis by @mariannaspring & @mwendling of how conspiracy theorists have used the COVID crisis to draw in new audiences. @JoeMulhall_ points out that as conspiracy theories coalesce into meta-theories, it’s a short step to antisemitism.

https://twitter.com/mariannaspring/status/1301430691264180225

Sorry to keep this thread going unnecessarily but I complexly missed another far right/antisemitic activist who was at last weekend’s anti-mask rally, James Thring. On Thring see this mini-thread:

https://twitter.com/hopenothate/status/1300811553462267907

Germany’s lockdown protests: How conspiracy theories bind ideologically disparate forces (HT @Chimpman) ft.com/content/6e0288…

I didn’t know until I read this @DAaronovitch article that Andrew Wakefield (discredited MMR guru & anti-vaxx icon) was a guest at Trump’s inauguration! thetimes.co.uk/article/anti-v…

I was also struck by the Icke family endorsement of Assad fan & anti-Wikipedia crusader Neil Clark:

I started a new thread for the 19 September anti-mask protests in London:

https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/1307330153714978818?s=21

#NoNewNormal #KBF https://t.co/3Lz2rRJn6Q

A little more on the anti-lockdown movement and its far right links:

1/3 The newly formed “World Doctors Alliance” is calling for “Covid Nuremberg trials”. They’re equating lockdown measure Nazi crimes against humanity - which is a form of Holocaust minimisation.

2/3 I believe the idea of a Covid Nuremberg comes from antisemitic hate preacher David Icke, who of course thinks the original Nuremberg trails for the wrong people thejc.com/news/uk/conspi…

3/3 Among the stars of the “World Doctors Alliance”: the Irish freedom party’s Delores Cahill (featured further up this thread—she thinks Covid is a seasonal flu) & ex-UKIP London assembly member David Kurten (not a doctor)

Covid is clearly a big opportunity for hard right hacks

Comparison of the COVID public health response to Nazi Germany is a staple of the denialist/#KBF scene (the Reichstagsbrand was the Nazis’ pretext for the suppression of civil liberties in 1933) which is such a grotesquely offensive analogy.

The thread above is about links between the far right and the Covid conspiracy scene. Lately I’ve noticed more examples of this overlap and I am restarting the thread to highlight three ways fascism and Covid crankery relate:

First, conspiracy theories around the virus (& vaccines, 5G, the “Great Reset” etc) act as a gateway to others, as I documented in the thread here (and, of course, these theories often lead back to antisemitism, which is the uber conspiracy theory)

https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/1355180043618701312

Second, I’m increasingly seeing examples of “softcore Holocaust denial”, as defined by @deborahlipstadt: not hardcore denial the Shoah happened, but denying its specific nature eg through offensive comparisons theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

I documented one example of this in my last thread, from Del Bigtree, an anti-vaxxer promoted by RFK and Grayzone, among others, and who Tory MP Desmond Swayne met with.

https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/1355180046630137860?s=21

The most obvious recent example of this softcore denialism is Piers Corbyn’s use of Auschwitz imagery to talk about vaccines

https://twitter.com/bobfrombrockley/status/1357977010119839744?s=21

Another example, brought to my attention by @MarkHazard2020 & @MHtwafa, is the White Rose, apparently a grassroots Catholic-led anti-lockdown group that obscenely takes on the mantle of German anti-Nazi resistors.

I can’t quite capture how offensive it is to like people who won’t wear a mask during a pandemic to Sophie Scholl, guillotined for defying one of the most evil to totalitarianisms in history holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/scholl.…

This softcore denialism, apart from being offensive, is dangerous, because it makes people receptive to more hardcore forms.

Third, and most concretely, the anti-lockdown movement is proving a photo recruitment ground for the far right.

https://twitter.com/dipeshgadher/status/1358377339240001537?s=21

Further up this thread I looked at the Irish far right activists involved in the anti-lockdown movement. It seems they have become increasingly upfront in their presence.

https://twitter.com/ffrafaction/status/1358122985446596608?s=21

A while back I tweeted “I genuinely believe this movement is the strongest basis for a serious mass fascist movement in British since Enoch Powell’s day. I find it honestly scary.” I’m more convinced of this now.