The Light: Inside the UK’s conspiracy theory newspaper that shares violence and hate - BBC

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Header image showing Darren Nesbit and a series of protest signs

By Marianna Spring

BBC disinformation and social media correspondent

A UK conspiracy theory newspaper sharing calls for trials and executions of politicians and doctors has links with the British far-right and a German publication connected to a failed coup attempt, the BBC can reveal.

The Light, which prints at least 100,000 copies a month and has more than 18,000 followers on the social media site Telegram, grew to be a focal point of the UK conspiracy theory movement with its anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown stance during the pandemic.

In its pages and on its corresponding Telegram channels, the Light has shared hateful and violent rhetoric towards journalists, medics and MPs, as well as platforming far-right figures accused of antisemitism.

The paper is handed out free by volunteers in dozens of towns across the country, where local leaders have accused it of inflaming division and harassment with false and misleading claims about vaccines, the financial system and climate change, amid other more mundane articles on local politics, health and wellness.

Articles and content shared by the Light have called for the government, doctors, nurses and journalists to be punished for "crimes against humanity" in war crime-style trials sometimes called "Nuremberg 2.0" - referring to the execution of Nazi Party members after World War Two.

Recent articles declare "It's just a matter of time before these worst perpetrators of war crimes are facing trial" like in "November 1945" and "MPs, doctors and nurses can be hanged".

Other posts shared by the Light on Telegram have featured cartoons of gallows and included work addresses of "liable people to be held to account" for taking part in sinister plots to harm people with vaccines - plots for which there is no evidence.

On Telegram, the paper has also shared and endorsed content from UK far-right groups including Patriotic Alternative, promoting rallies and posts talking about the "replacement" of white people and asking people to "#GetInvolved".

It has also shared posts from an extreme group called Alpha Men Assemble offering military-style training to anti-vaccine activists. They say "it's time we show them who rules this country".

Darren Nesbit, editor of the Light, defended calls in his paper to use force against "aggressors" in power, telling the BBC it would be a matter of "self-defence" in circumstances such as the government ordering another lockdown or what he described as forced evacuations.

Bundles of the Light newspaper with the headline "Constitutional crisis" piled up in Totnes

He says he isn't in charge of the Light's Telegram channels, although acknowledges they are directly linked to the paper. Posts are sometimes signed off by the "Light Paper Team" and sometimes with his name.

Mr Nesbit says he speaks to the editor of the conspiracy theory newspaper in Germany, Demokratischer Widerstand (Democratic Resistance) - which is connected to a failed coup attempt in the country - "two or three times a year". He has published content endorsing the publication.

The German paper refers to the Light as its "partner" paper and its "colleagues" at the British publication, describing how they're "internationally connected".

Referring to concerns about the wider conspiracy theory movement more generally, the UK's Head of Counter Terrorism Policing Matt Jukes has told the BBC they are currently "seeing evidence of conspiracy theories being interwoven with extremism" and that this "connection is very much on our radar and in our sights as investigators".

Set up in 2020 as a print publication, the Light is distributed in about 30 places across the UK such as Brighton, Thetford, Stroud, Plymouth, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester and Glastonbury. Local conspiracy theory groups place bulk orders and distribute them on the streets for free.

In the Devon town of Totnes, a motivated minority have been distributing the Light for the past two years. Its former town Mayor Ben Piper says he first became a key target of the conspiracy theory movement there because of his role enforcing coronavirus restrictions.

He fears an article about him in the Light exacerbated the harassment he experienced - from abuse in the street, to sinister phone calls, to someone driving a car at him.

"There was an aggression that bled through the editorial that was not as innocent as it was making out to be," he says.

The Light's editor, Darren Nesbit, is based near Manchester. He agreed to speak to me, only on the condition that he can ask me questions and record the interview too.

For him, everything from financial turmoil to climate change and 9/11 terror attacks in the US are part of a plan by governments to control and harm our lives. He thinks the pandemic was just one step towards doing that.

The paper has featured an article by a blogger called Lasha Darkmoon, saying that people should be able to question the Holocaust. And another article recommended a book by white supremacist Eustace Mullins - author of The Biological Jew and Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation. Mullins is referred to in the Light as a "renowned" author.

"If they write good articles on topics that are useful topics that are interesting to people, then we should [feature them] at the end of the day," Mr Nesbit says. He reiterates again and again that "people should be adults and make their own decisions".

"My aim is not to do anything else apart from get to the truth and then obviously let other people have a bash at seeing that information as well."

The Light directly defended a UK-based radio host called Graham Hart over antisemitic remarks he made on his show referring to Jewish people as "filth" and like "rats", suggesting "they deserve to be wiped out". He was sentenced to 32 months in prison for making the remarks.

While Mr Nesbit says those comments were "pretty harsh", he maintains that the paper defends the radio host's "right to say it".

I ask him whether he thinks calls for action in the paper could result in action that's not peaceful.

He replies, "Of course, people can make their own decisions, and they need to be responsible for their own actions."

He tells me that the paper doesn't "actually necessarily call for action". But, Mr Nesbit also says, "People should not be passive and just let the world change around them because there is, you know, an agenda and a purpose behind it."

I directly ask him, "Why don't you say there's no place for violence in our movement?"

He replies, "Because I might be wrong."

Throughout the interview, Mr Nesbit condemns violent action - and then gives cryptic answers, which seem to contradict that.

Telegram has not responded to the BBC's request for comment about why it has allowed the Light and other conspiracy theory papers to share violent and hateful rhetoric.

Research carried up by King's College London backs up the idea that calls to action endorsed by conspiracy theory media like the Light could be affecting attitudes.

A survey, commissioned by the BBC, suggested that an average of 61.5% of people - when asked questions about attending rallies linked to common conspiracy theories, such as anti-vaccine beliefs - think violence could be justified at protests. They were more likely to think this if they read conspiracy theory media including the Light.

"Built within these theories [are] inherent demands to do something, to take direct action," says research team member Dr Rod Dacombe, who has studied the Light.

"We shouldn't get away from [how] this occasionally moves into either violence or some sort of violent right action. Not everybody who goes to a protest is going to be brought in by this. Most people won't, right? But some people will."

Portait of Markus Heinz, a former writer for Demokratischer Widerstand

As well as links with the German paper Demokratischer Widerstand, The Light has related papers in Ireland, Canada and Australia.

Two whistleblowers spoke to the BBC over concerns about how radical they say the German paper has become.

They say some of the Demokratischer Widerstand's writers and a key donor to the paper met the Reichsburger group behind a failed coup attempt in Germany in December 2022.

One of the whistleblowers, lawyer Markus Heinz, who stopped writing for the paper in 2022, says the editor, Anselm Lenz, is an "extremist" which he defines as someone who "brings people in a position where they at least could think about getting violent".

Mr Heinz also says members of the wider conspiracy theory movement in Germany have been offered money by Kremlin-linked figures to push disinformation.

The other, Martin Le Jeune, who stopped writing for the paper in 2021 says it is creating a "hateful and divided" atmosphere, where "somebody who could be emotional or psychologically unstable could be triggered to do something terrible".

The editor of the German conspiracy paper, Mr Lenz, did not reply directly to any of the points raised by the BBC. He called me "a highly paid Nato and BBC Propagandist'' and said I was a threat to him and his family. He also accused me of slander of "our friends of the great English democratic movement".

"If needed, we are willing to take the fight by all means," he wrote.