In Northampton last Tuesday, police arrested nine dangerous criminals for holding cardboard signs in the rain. There was a gaggle of witnesses alongside me. Passersby stopped to see what all the fuss was about. A few organisers, some supporters and a handful of wellbeing officers. Forty-odd police officers, too, of course – almost four per protester at times. However, I was concerned, actually.

Not by the display of state overreach on display in front of me – oh no… Something else was irking me. I felt unsafe. Where were all the floating iPhones and tiny fuzzy microphones? “How will I buy a stranger a QR code coffee?” – I scream in my head. That’s right. Not a single YouTuber “free speech” bellend (or auditor as they call themselves) turned up to witness the premeditated criminalisation of our right to free speech:

Rise of the YouTube wanker – or ‘auditors’ if you prefer

I have to admit, I have watched some of the original far-right auditors who started off a few years ago. Some of its almost good entertainment – but its never been in honest good faith. Everyone who owns a camera has, to at some point, examine the ethics behind looking down a lens.

“Tough shit, you’re in public”, is rarely a good jumping off point for that examination. And if you never evolve beyond that you’re probably a dick.

I had no clue they had proliferated like this – what the actual fuck. In Sheffield a few weeks ago about 30 of them were trailing after and around the UKIP protest. At Villa Park, streams of them too. I’ve come across several of them over the last few months in Newcastle – they come along to protests, have a barely disguised knee slap with with the organisers of the far-right demo/counter, and then sidle through the police lines to try and grab some soundbites off inadvertent demonstrators on the other side that can be chopped up; edited to suit a narrative – which is usually far-right in its leaning. And my fellow Canary journalists see them all the time when they’re out on the ground in London:

Police + auditors love up

The thing that really gets me is the police’s clear indifference at best – and sometimes it’s not even that subtle. As I reported for the Canary a few weeks ago in Sheffield, far-right auditors like Charlie Veitch were heavily in attendance – at one point one of these chaps was standing next to an officer, repeatedly shouting at a left-wing independent journalist that she was a “nonce”. Now I’m not a doctor but I have heard of Section 5 of the Public Order Act. How is it that these people are able to navigate the police lines, whilst legitimate journalists aren’t allowed? Then they use that privilege to verbally attack their counterparts? None of these auditors hold press cards – yet it seems the police let them go where, and do what, they want:

Its infuriating, but this wasn’t a new experience for man on the ground “Barold”. (Oh yes. That’s right. He did it. Third person reflection, followed by a fourth wall break – triple word score. Yahtzee.)

At Villa Park a couple of nights earlier I had a similar realisation. I was having to argue with police lines to let me into an area full of fake, far-right racist journalists. Multiple times I had to literally point and say, but they are in there, how do I get in there – only to be told no one could get in there. Turns out no one was there.

Similar happened to my Canary colleagues in London. Far-right auditors were allowed to film on both the Zionist and pro-Palestine sides of the recent Bob Vylan protest – despite there being a Section 14 in place and despite none of them having press cards.

It’s a bit of a piss take. I’m verging on writing a strongly worded letter.

Fragile snowflakes

The other thing that gets me is the juxtaposition. They are remarkably fragile for such pretend alphas… they are the first ones to go crying to the police about anything that can be construed as a public order offence. And for people who thrive on the law’s ability to allow individuals to film others in public they are very defensive when the tables are turned.

A guy in Birmingham with a full on gyroscopic stabiliser for his phone flipped the camera and started with me for taking a picture of him – “I know who you are”… It’s honestly never not going to be funny being accused of being an undercover copper. Sometimes you just have to smile down the lens and laugh about it.

It is such a challenge to police – it must be disorienting at times. One officer in Birmingham told me that his job now more closely resembled a customer service role. With the constant surveillance of the public and fake paparazzi it sounded like he was more focussed on not visibly fucking up than being an effective public servant.

In Sheffield another officer told me it was the rapid change that was the most difficult thing; how are you supposed to react to such rapid changes in the behaviour of people at protests?

Innocent free speech warriors?

Most of these renegades will claim that this is innocent. They are just exercising their rights to free assembly and speech. Yeah that is technically true, but it’s impossible to pretend there isn’t a crossover here. In Sheffield at the UKIP rally there was at least one instance of an instigator communicating with streamers on the other side of the lines. Police later let two of them into the kettle with left-wing protesters inside – this dynamic is fundamentally unsafe. And these videos, regardless of intent, are amazing intel for the far right in their quest to dox people.

We’ve seen it in real-time with far-right Zionist group Stop The Hate UK and the ‘auditors’ associated with it doxxing pro-Palestine activists to both the police and the Telegraph. Hope Not Hate (not a group we support by the way as they’re part of the problem) have just released an investigation into how some of these auditors have organised together to collate information on left-wing people.

Auditors are not innocent members of the public. They are organised far-right racist goons working for, and/or with, fascist and Zionist groups to disrupt and dox the left.

I’m sure these auditors will point at people like me doing a real job and try and draw an equivalence between us. I don’t have the time to pretend that it’s valid. We all know what they are and we all know what they actually represent. But certainly now I know who they don’t represent – those brave individuals up and down the country, who decided to sit down with some cardboard in the rain and write on it “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”:

By Barold

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