-I believe that we're going through a tyranny
as bad as Hitler.
Hitler's Germany.
I'm standing up for my child's future
and all the kids' future,
and what I'm seeing being pushed on us
has got nothing to do with health
and that's why I'm here.
-Since 2017, the QAnon extremist ideology has connected
and developed a wide web of conspiracy theories.
The central claim of the movement
is that former president Donald Trump
is fighting a deep-state secret cabal of Satan worshippers
who traffic and abuse children.
This is, of course, not true,
but while this radicalized movement was formed
and shaped in the crucible of American politics,
it's also now found a foothold abroad,
including in the United Kingdom.
-Hello. -Hello.
How are you? -I'm not bad, thank you.
How are you doing?
-Annie Kelly is a writer and researcher
of far-right digital movements, including QAnon in the UK.
I asked her what makes British QAnon different.
-The relationship between American QAnon
and British QAnon is really interesting.
At first, we had
a really similar digital culture of QAnon.
It kind of followed the similar pattern of Trump
fighting the deep state,
and it felt almost kind of like a copy.
Over lockdown, it's really shifted.
It's become much more rooted, I would say, in British culture.
I sometimes even say, you know,
it's got a bit more of a British flavor now.
-British QAnon followers have been energized
by the rejection of coronavirus precautions,
lockdowns, and vaccines, as in the US,
but with one crucial difference.
-I would say the most significant difference
is how non-partisan it seems to be.
It really doesn't feel like it's connected
to any kind of political party.
It's not as if QAnon in the UK all thinks that, you know,
Boris Johnson is secretly working behind the scenes
to stop the deep state or anything like that.
In fact, he's, you know, really heavily villainized.
I don't think there's any UK politician that they, like,
don't view with mistrust.
-Over the course of the pandemic,
Britain had intense and prolonged lockdowns
which lasted many months
and were meant to curb a devastating death rate.
Anti-lockdown demonstrators have gathered each month
in other to protest these restrictions.
These demonstrations have brought together
many different types of people.
Not everyone at these rallies is there
because they see themselves as a devoted follower of QAnon,
but the marches do draw many people
who carry QAnon-related signs and share QAnon memes online.
These marches also draw many people,
and particularly women, under the banner
of "save the children."
-Just protesting against the lockdown
and the totalitarian country this is turning into
and just for our children's futures
and my grandchildren's futures.
-I am here for my children
because they're coming for our children next.
They started trialing it on our children,
and children are dying.
There's children in America that are doing the Pfizer
trials, and they've died.
I'm here today for that.
-The Save the Children conspiracy,
which has nothing to do
with the established British charity of the same name,
is a large part of what drives British QAnon
and rallies like the one seen in London,
and it's partly inspired by stories
of actual child-abuse scandals in Britain.
-There have been just in, you know, recent memory,
some really kind of horrific crimes that,
you know, really stay on the public memory,
and so it feels like Save the Children
has especially blown up here
because it's capitalizing on an obsession and anxiety
that already exists.
-Content about QAnon and Save the Children conspiracies
finds its way to regular people on Facebook and Instagram
in groups about parenting, yoga, spirituality,
and other lifestyle interests.
These kinds of spaces were quick to pick up on QAnon content
and helped to radicalize women in particular.
-Basically, our liberties and our freedoms
are totally trampled on,
and there is actually no evidence to say
that lockdowns work, masks work, or the vaccination works.
In fact, the vaccination doesn't work because if it worked,
we wouldn't have to wear masks,
we wouldn't have to socially distance.
We still can't travel or we have to take tests,
so what's the point of any of that?
It doesn't make sense. -Lies!
Lies! Lies!
-So I think it probably is through social-media sites
where you're constantly being fed
this sort of kind of smorgasbord of content,
this kind of drip feed of various bits of content.
A picture of my friend and her baby,
a picture of my friend and his dog,
this kind of strange thing about, you know,
sexual trafficking cabals and Satanic rituals and stuff.
"Huh, that's weird," and quite often,
I don't think they were necessarily
looking for a conspiracy theory.
I think it more happened by a kind of drip process
through what started out as kind of really normal channels.
-The way that QAnon has adapted to exist in Britain
as something apart from Trump and Trumpism may give some clues
as to where the movement goes next in America.
-One of the ways I think that it's been so clever
is the that it doesn't attach itself
like lots of conspiracy theories do.
It's just one event in the past.
It's not about, like, 9/11, the moon landing, JFK,
but QAnon sort of offers you, like,
a lens to everything that's happening as it happens.
It kind of attaches itself
to things like COVID conspiracy theories and attaches itself
to whatever the kind of political landscape is.
-Freedom! -Some version of it will exist
probably until someone turns the Internet off,
but in terms of whether it will be recognizable to us as QAnon
is probably a really interesting question.