Reform UK’s candidate in Blackpool South by-election revealed exploring a number of conspiracy theories in 2018 video
A video has been unearthed showing one of Reform UK’s most hopeful candidates discussing a string of conspiracy theories on his YouTube channel.
Running in the Blackpool South by-election this Thursday for Reform UK, Mark Butcher has been set up as the right-wing party’s best chance of making headlines this weekend by taking Conservative voters in the area.
However the Mirror has reported that the Reform UK candidate posted a video in 2018 entitled “Don’t mug me off” in which he engaged in various conspiracy theories and told his followers to “get real people, wakey wakey, red pill time”.
In the video Mark Butcher urged viewers to “do your research” about topics such as Agenda 21, a UN non-binding sustainability resolution that conspiracy theorists think is a plot to subjugate humanity under an eco-totalitarian regime. As well as the Kalergi Agreement, a debunked far right conspiracy theory that European civilization would be replaced by other races.
He also outlined his own theories, including the suggestion that the Government gets a person’s weight in gold which it can trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange every time they sign a document, calls the DVLA an “evil entity” and touts the idea that the CIA made TVs to put people to sleep so they wouldn’t be alert to these conspiracies.
During the video Butcher said, “some of these theories that the patriots are putting out there, lets say some of them are true, there is no point burying our head in the sand”.
Responding to the Mirror’s findings, a Reform UK spokesperson said: “This is clearly some very late night philosophical ramblings about the state of the nation 5 1/2 years ago. He raises questions about a number of matters, while accepting that they are all questionable and conspiracy theories, dismisses voting for the main parties and UKIP, but pledges to fight against division and that he isn’t going to give up on the country.”
Another former Reform UK candidate, Paul Carnell, who was suspended from the party after sharing a stage with a jailed far-right Hitler fan, was exposed engaging in antisemitic conspiracy theories by the campaign group Hope Not Hate. The organisation found Carnell had worked heavily in the militant conspiracy theory group Alpha Team Assemble and endorsed a pro-Nazi Holocaust denial documentary.
Other examples include Reform’s candidate for Exmouth and Exeter East Gary Sutherland who endorsed an anti-Semitic video from conspiracy theorist David Icke. Along with Richard Brown, the party’s candidate in Harrogate and Knaresborough, who shared Covid conspiracy theories and claimed that the pandemic was an ‘illusion’ ‘planned’ by the Government ‘since 2016’.
Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward
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