How Leave.EU faked migrant footage
 

The pro-Brexit campaign group, Leave.EU, faked a viral video and appear to have staged photos of “migrants”, shortly before the EU referendum.

An investigation by Channel 4 News found that images purporting to show “migrants” attacking young women in London seem to have been staged.

The group – backed by businessman Arron Banks – was also behind a fake video, claiming to show how easy it is for migrants to sneak into Britain. In reality, satellite data shows the men on board had not left UK waters.

The photographs and video both involved a former SAS soldier, Jonathan Pollen, who works for Banks’ corporate intelligence agency.

Although the photos were never used, the fake video went viral, garnering hundreds of thousands of views on Facebook.

Responding to the investigation Arron Banks accused Channel 4 News journalists of creating “fake news” themselves.

But Labour MP Jo Stevens, who sits on the Culture, Media and Sports Committee described the video and images to Channel 4 News as “fake news”.

“The video of the boat is very obviously fake and put together in a fake way. The photographs are a little bit more difficult to spot that, but clearly fake news with a deliberate intention of stoking hatred and anti-immigrant feeling and rhetoric.”

She added: “We have local government elections, we have potentially European Parliament elections, we might have a General Election, and we might have a second referendum – and we still have no regulation around digital campaigning and the sort of disinformation and fake news, which will play a part in all of those elections, unless some regulation is put in place.”

‘Migrant’ images
Just days before the EU referendum in 2016, Leave.EU published an “undercover investigation” on Facebook, purporting to show how easy it is to smuggle migrants across the Channel.

But satellite data, seen by Channel 4 News, shows the footage was filmed in reverse. The shots of “migrants” entering the UK were actually filmed before the boat had even left British waters.

Just days earlier, Leave.EU was also behind a series of seemingly-staged photographs that show a woman being violently attacked by a man wearing a hooded jacket. Another photo appeared to show a woman being grabbed from behind as she walks into a shop.

One of the attackers seen in the photos is wearing a distinctive grey denim jacket, with black leather sleeves and a white hood. A strikingly similar outfit is worn by one of the “migrants” seen in the Channel crossing video.

Leaked emails, seen by Channel 4 News, show the pictures were emailed by Mr Pollen to Andy Wigmore, Leave.EU’s head of communications and Arron Banks’ right hand man.

Mr Wigmore then forwarded them on to Leave.EU press team, saying: “Migrants beating up girl in Tottenham [on] Saturday… Can we get this ready to go as a press release.”

In a statement, Arron Banks told Channel 4 News: “Leave.eu is the biggest viral political campaign in the UK, with 3.7 million engagements last week on Facebook alone. Dwarfing political parties and other groups.”

“Channel 4 is packed with ex-Guardian journalists and left wing activists, who create Fake news for a living!

“The campaign must be doing something right to annoy all the right people consistently.”

Phil Campion, who fronted the Channel crossing video, firmly denied that he personally was involved in faking anything.

“I am not deceiving anybody. I didn’t cut the video. I didn’t cut the footage. I gave them the footage they asked me for, okay? I brought people back from France.”

Jonathan Pollen did not respond to our request to comment.

Channel 4 News Investigations Team.

faking migrant footage, for likes and attention from media :skull:

Yes watched
a report on Ch4HD yesterday.

The EX SAS Big Fella (works on The Pledge)
was hired to show how easy it was to cross,
just to prove that its easy to do.


Banks has payed his fine,

More Votes were lost
when David Cameron dragged the USA President
in to talk down to us.

It was done to scare people about the dangers of brown people coming here, and influence them to vote leave.

You've used this nonsense multiple times and unless you have some hard evidence that it's true, then it's just BS, especially when

Social media preaches to the converted.

At that time BBC News and ITN used to fill their bulletins with footage (not faked) of migrants in camps in Southern Europe. The journalists would find some who spoke English and ask them where they wanted to go and unsurprisingly they said the UK.

It was TV news (including C4) that won it for leave.

The migrant crisis rarely makes the news now but it's still a crisis.

Madam Speaker :love:

Why didn't they just go to mainland Europe instead of faking the footage?

fake news on youtube?

WHAT??

:oh:

im not bothered anyroad as it was the advert on a bus i saw that swung me

:love:

LOL...

They had a lot of extras in the camps in France.

The Leave side relied on a lot of fake news, fake videos like this (also one that made out we were beholden to EU laws when most of the laws listed in the video, which were only listed briefly and purposely made difficult to read, have no effect on us personally), fake slogans on the side of buses and more. Plus you have the likes of Gove telling people to reject the words of experts because they weren't saying what the Leave side wanted to hear.

The Leave campaign was built on fake news and it worked, most people didn't know what they were voting for because the lies worked.

"most people didn't know what they were voting for"

that is a personal assumption only

Not really, most people don't do research into the things they vote for, they vote based on base level **** which is why fake news is so dangerous because people will see headlines on facebook and take it as fact. They'll look to the Sun and the Daily Mail headlines for their news and vote based on what they see.

The vast majority of people are ill informed and swayed by untrustworthy sources. It's just a fact at this point.

leave.eu have known links with russia, and some of the adverts they were running in the lead up to the referendum were ridiculous

like yourself then?

or do you mean other people who are not you?

Starting to the think that the leave campaign made a lot of stuff up :think:

This is a thread about fake news and fake footage having sway over the voting public... The spread of fake news is a major concern in today's world and how prominent it is paints a damning picture for how informed most voters are.

By all means, offer up an argument about how everyone is informed but considering that you've just tried to make it personal, I won't hold my breath.

Isn't it cute how remainers think they're such great researchers, so much better than anyone who disagrees with them. I mean, it doesn't matter who that person is with whom they're disagreeing, if their opinion is different then they're awful, stoooopid, right wing bigots.

i would not try and pretend to know what swayed millions of people to vote leave or remain and i certainly would not call 17 million people illinformed

all asked by remain voters

actually probably all asked by journalists