Thread by @docrussjackson

Businesswoman Bonnie Spofforth, who lives in a £1.5 million farmhouse in Cheshire, accused of being first to spread the fake rumours about the Southport killer which sparked nationwide riots. has been arrested.

metro.co.uk/2024/08/08/wom…

Well well well...

It looks like GB "News" guest Bernie/Bonnie Spofforth is also a known anti-Lockdown campaigner who had her Twitter account briefly suspended, which may reveal the overlap between those opposing COVID health measures & the anti-climate movement online - & now the far-right too.

According to Rational Wiki:

'Like many others, Spofforth's regular talking points include conspiracies about the World Economic Forum and the idea that achieving Net Zero will cause millions of deaths by ‘mass poverty’.'

rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bernie_Sp…

Bernadette "Bernie"/"Bonnie" Spofforth "is a UK based South African educated businesswoman & swimwear inventor turned denialist and conspiracy theorist" who features in the research 2022 paper: 'Growing polarization around climate change on social media'.
openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/2935…

'Coming to prominence during the pandemic tweeting out against vaccines, masks & lockdowns, she later started spreading climate change misinformation related to Agenda 2030, The Great Reset, climate lockdown, and 15-minute cities,[7] as well as anti-trans rhetoric'.

Spofforth amassed over 235,000 followers on her primary Twitter account - which can be seen below as posting plenty of inflammatory, misleading & highly speculative partisan misinformation - before losing it.

web.archive.org/web/2023072215…

Her suspension & Twitter feed inevitably caught the attention of major right-wing news outlets in the UK and in 2021 earned her interviews on conservative billionaire-owned networks like TalkTV (with Julia Hartley-Brewer) and GB "News" (with Dan Wootton).

In this interview with Dan Wootton on GB "News" about her Twitter/@X account being reinstated, Wootton gleefully says to Spofforth "You have now become a twitter sensation, you gained tens of thousands of followers didn't you after twitter suspended you!"

https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1457842865762091012

She has written articles on economics, the environment and China for Byline Times and the highly questionable Country Squire Magazine, and somewhat inevitably, been praised & promoted by crackpot GB "News" presenter, Neil Oliver.

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1345696122917027842

Spofforth denied responsibility for what happened with the dangerous & false misinformation she amplified on @X about the identity of the Southport attacker & which fuelled the far-right riots, anonymously in The Times, & later in the Mail where she claimed to be 'mortified'.

Anyway, according to the METRO newspaper, Spofforth has now been arrested on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred, and false communication, and she remains in police custody.

metro.co.uk/2024/08/08/wom…

Chief Superintendent Alison Ross said: ‘We have all seen the violent disorder that has taken place across the UK over the past week, much of which has been fuelled by malicious and inaccurate communications online.’

‘It’s a stark reminder of the dangers of posting information on social media platforms without checking the accuracy.

‘It also acts as a warning that we are all accountable for our actions, whether that be online or in person.’

While she has not been named in the police statement about the arrest, the METRO says it is "believed to be Bonnie Spofforth, a mother-of-three and the managing director of a clothing company."

Spofforth, 55, posted the false claim at 4.49pm on Monday, July 29, the day of the attack, saying: ‘Ali Al-Shakati was the suspect, he was an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year and was on an MI6 watch list. If this is true, then all hell is about to break loose.’

Spofforth's Twitter/@X account @Artemisfornow is still up & running, & her last tweet prior to her arrest brings to light an influential account at the heart of 'anti-woke' disinformation which @elonmusk constantly interacts with: @endwokeness, which now has 2.8MILLION followers.

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness Spofforth's last tweet before her arrest makes the dangerous & misleading claim that Tim Walz (Kamala Harris's proposed VP) will effectively ban free speech in the US & "The Govt will be your only source of truth". There are many exceptions to free speech.

https://x.com/Artemisfornow/status/1821234443413287228

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness Perhaps @marcowenjones can help out here, but it has been claimed that the influential disinformation @X account @EndWokeness (quote tweeted by Spofforth, & one of @elonmusk's favourite accounts) may be run by alt-right political activist,Jack Posobiec.

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones Posobiec is an alt/far-right political activist, TV correspondent & presenter, conspiracy theorist, & former US Navy intelligence officer.

Here he is amplifying the same misleading claim Spofforth makes, & demonstrating his habit of taking the piss out of the UK & our policing.

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones Posobiec has been widely criticised for co-authoring a recent book titled 'Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them)', which argues that 'leftists are not entitled to be considered human'. nytimes.com/2024/08/05/opi…

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones Posobiec's social media and political activities are linked to neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements. He has published multiple posts on @X containing the white supremacist code "1488", or the Fourteen Words, and supports the use of the slogan.

splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020…

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones Again, it's worth emphasising that experts have attempted to analyse the influence of the @EndWokeness account, especially when boosted by @elonmusk.

https://x.com/marcowenjones/status/1656628921566212100

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones In April 2017, Posobiec promoted on Twitter an event staged by Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny, a Polish neo-fascist movement that bombed Jewish homes in the 1930s. Posobiec later deleted his tweet promoting the event.

splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021…

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones Like many right-wing influencers, Posobiec has frequently tweeted about the white supremacist white genocide conspiracy theory, & his links to far-right hate groups & to white nationalists, neo-Nazis, anti-government extremists are well known.

newsweek.com/trump-tweets-a…

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones In 2017, Posobiec was employed by Rebel News, a far-right Canada-based website, as its Washington bureau chief, & was granted press access to the White House in April 2017.

In 2023, he interviewed Tommy Robinson on 'Real America's Voice', a right-wing to far-right TV channel.

@X @Artemisfornow @elonmusk @EndWokeness @marcowenjones On February 22, speaking at #CPAC, he welcomed the “end of democracy”, saying “we are here to overthrow it completely... We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it & replace it with this, right here.”
#Project2025
independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…