On June 26, thousands of people gathered in central London to protest against the U.K. government’s Covid-19 restrictions — never mind that most of the measures were due to be lifted in two weeks’ time. Billed as the Freedom March, the event drew a crowd comprising a wide range of groups and individuals. Among them anti-vaxxers, placard-waving QAnon followers, Donald Trump supporters and a host of coronavirus deniers. At one point, they launched a barrage of tennis balls with angry messages written on them at the Houses of Parliament and lit flares.

From the summer of 2020 on, London had hosted smaller protests against the state’s pandemic response. However, this time, a number of prominent and well-connected right-wing figures also hit the streets. Among them were TalkRadio presenter and newspaper columnist Julia Hartley-Brewer and conservative political commentator Calvin Robinson. In order to “ensure proper coverage” that “cannot be ignored” by the mainstream media, Richard Tice, leader of Reform U.K — the new name for the Brexit Party — hired a helicopter to film the event for a YouTube stream titled Freedom March Live.

Right-wing journalists like Hartley-Brewer have given anti-lockdown and Covid-19-skeptic views a regular platform during the pandemic. On her TalkRadio show, she has hosted medical figures who deny the efficacy of lockdowns or who have played down the severity of Covid-19. Toby Young, a British writer best known elsewhere for penning a memoir about his disastrous period of employment at Vanity Fair in New York, now writes for the Spectator and is the editor of a website called the Daily Sceptic. Despite their constant undermining of measures to tackle the spread of Covid-19, these well-known media personalities have tended to support the coronavirus protest movement from a distance — until now. 

One of the most outspoken opponents to Covid-19 restrictions is the former editor of the men’s magazine Loaded and one-time Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney. Daubney appeared on Freedom March Live, giving on-the-ground reports, including a chat with the actor and anti-woke campaigner Laurence Fox, who stood in the London mayoral elections earlier this year on a staunchly anti-lockdown platform, winning less than 2% of the vote. Over the past year, Daubney has repeatedly defended anti-lockdown protests on social media. Since the majority of the U.K.’s pandemic restrictions were lifted in July, he and several of his peers have recently pivoted to railing against “vaccine passports” and remaining pandemic measures.