Together Declaration Report: Part One, Directors, Founders and Launch

Initially founded to oppose vaccine mandates and passports, the campaign group brought together the anti-vax HART group and culture war characters from the RCP/Living Marxism clique

The Together Declaration was formed in August 2021 to “push back against the rapidly growing infringements to our rights and freedoms” with a focus on opposing COVID mandates, passports and children being offered the covid vaccine. Closely intertwined with GB News, Together have since expanded to oppose Net-Zero, migration, and a range of other issues, particularly those that border conspiratorial claims about the World Economics Forum (WEF) such 15 Minute Cities and Digital ID.

While there may be legitimate criticism of various policies, Together often use misrepresentation to make their points while representatives use rhetoric while seems designed to rile up those who believe “the globalists” are plotting against them.

Directors

Directors include Alan Miller, who is effectively the frontman of the organisation, was a partner of Clare Fox’s Battle of Ideas. Miller is Chairman of The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), a sector that obviously clearly suffered from lockdowns and other measures, but was also a recipient of billions in financial support from the government.

Francis Hoar, a Pandata member and the lawyer who represented Keep Britain Free’s legal challenge against the first lockdown and then led a succession of failed legal challenges against covid vaccines as part of an organised anti-vax campaign coordinated by a HART working group.

Steve James, the doctor who was filmed questioning Sajid Javid about vaccine deaths, and Anna Rayner of HART, who resigned her Together directorship in 2023.

Founders

Anna Rayner was HART's coordinator when the organisation was founded.

The HARTleaks reveal homeopath Anna Rayner was fully radicalised in conspiracy culture, a fan of the disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield and RFK Jr, Raynor believes the MMR causes vaccine and prior to the pandemic charged parents for her to treat their children’s autism with homeopathy.

Rayner hasn't tried to hide her extremism, examples of her social media posts include:

31 October 2020 she posted “As long as the violence sees Whitty Vallance heads on stakes for crimes against humanity, I'm down with that.” This was while vaccines were still in development, lockdown alone was enough for Rayner.

7 November “Please God, we need a win! Sack him and all the other advisors. SAGE, Neil Ferguson, Whitty, Valance, hang the lot of them!”

15 January 2021, the HARTleaks show Rayner told her colleagues, “I think we could use the fertility angle of ‘we really don't know’ as really the most troubling aspect”, suggesting “It will really ring with young women I think.”

On 2 August 2021 Raynor said that she “knew a guy” in India who could supply them with ivermectin, a year later Michael Yeadon was sharing the details in a crank Telegram group.

Charlotte Gracias, is one of the more extreme HART members who appears to be entirely immersed in conspiracy culture.

A keen fan of chemtrails conspiracies Gracias has claimed governments were using cloud seeding to flood farms and drive farmers out of business so they can bring in "vaccinated mRNA food.” She also thought the weather was being manipulated for use as a weapon, and that floods in Dubai were a deliberate weather attack in retaliation for their "relationship with Iran".

A Putin fan, when Russia invaded Russia Gracias claimed extremist groups from across the world were “converging in Ukraine” to support the “Neo-Nazis”.

It was Gracias who introduced Bev Turner to HART as the TV presenter descended down the rabbit hole to become a full blown conspiracy theorist working for GB News.

Lesley Katon, formerly of the Brexit Party, was a director of Unlocked TV which Together celebrates for having provided a platform to John Lee (HART) and conspiracy theorist Michael Yeadon.

Unlocked TV was founded in May 2020 by Ben Habib, then of the Brexit Party. Kayton joined in October 2020 alongside Martin Daubney, who had been a Brexit Party MEP and parliamentary candidate. In August 2021 Daubney joined Lawrence Fox's Reclaim Party which failed miserably to attract votes. Unlocked TV was dissolved in April 2022.

Norris Windross, connected to Alan Miller's Night Time Industries Association.

Launch

Together launched with a media event with various individuals posing to sign the declaration. The choice of describing what began as effectively a campaign around an open letter as a declaration was clearly a homage to the Great Barrington Declaration. At the signing there was a large contingent of HART members including Renee Hoenderkamp and Tony Hinton who would become part of Together's executive team. Also present was Joel Smalley, one of HART's main data manglers who at the time was advising America's Frontline Doctors.

Signatories included Luke Johnson, a businessman who appeared in the media opposing lockdowns while providing funding for the Covid Recovery Group of MPs and the GBD's UK successor Collateral Global. Johnson was a speaker at Pandata’s 2021 event, and in December 2021 became a director of Toby Young's Daily Sceptic, a key cog in the online disinformation ecosystem which provides a bridge into conspiracy culture. Will Jones, another director of the Daily Sceptic, is also a member of HART, however this isn't mentioned on the Daily Sceptic site.

Career contrarians formerly of Living Marxism/ Revolutionary Communist Party, were also well represented amongst the signatories as were some individuals from the Tufton Street think tank network.

There was also an overlap with the Free Speech Union which has become the legal wing of the culture wars. With Claire Fox and now Toby Young in the House of Lords alongside other Brexit ultra affiliated peers, they can lay down their own amendments to legislation, for example in 2025 Young attempted to bypass the UK's Covid Inquiry with an amendment designed to block school closures in the event of a future pandemic.

Claire Fox, (RCP/LM, Academy of Ideas, Battle of Ideas, Free Speech Union), the Battle of Ideas conferences have been used to platform many members of HART, UsForThem and Together.

Frank Feruidi, (RCP/LM, Viktor Orban's MCC Brussels culture war think tank, Free Speech Union), has been described as Orban's attack dog for the role he plays in the culture wars.

Jennie Bristow was a director of Academy of Ideas and Spiked Online, joining HART in February 2021, her contacts list appears to have been important in helping HART establish links with journalists and MPs. Bristow has also been on the board of Collateral Global since its creation. After the HARTleaks broke, Bristow's name was removed from the HART website.

Other familiar names were Toby Young, GB News’ Tonia Buxton and TalkTV's Julia Hartley-Brewer.

Laura Dodsworth, a popular commentator in certain sections of the right-wing media, has focused on claiming the government waged an unnecessary campaign of fear regarding covid, and authored the book State of Fear on this topic. While accusing the government of psyops, Dodsworth's writing was done with the aid of Patrick Fagan, formerly of Cambridge Analytica, an organisation accused of conducting psyops during the Brexit Referendum and 2016 US Presidential Election.

Another signatory is Richard Tice, then leader of the Reform Party.

MAGAfication

Together is a merging of culture war veterans with a large contingent of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, and with it comes a shift in right wing campaigning in the UK towards something that looks more akin to MAGA.

Much as MAGA grew out of a movement on the fringes to reshape the Republican Party, Together pushes a policy base leaning heavily on conspiracy culture and relying on misrepresentation and disinformation.

When Together launched they had the support of the Covid Recovery Group of primarily Conservative MPs led by Brexit ultras Mark Harper and Steve Baker. Others in this group included Andrew Bridgen, William Wragg, Andrew Rosindell, Miriam Cates, Esther McVey and Graham Brady who has the chair of the 1922 committee which is an

They also had the support of Richard Tice, who at the time was leader of the Brexit Party that had changed its name to Reform under his leadership in late 2020 as it geared up as an anti-lockdown party.

Tice would go on to oppose covid vaccines for children which earned him the support of UsForThem founder Molly Kinglsey, who has defended his anti covid vaccine credentials when he has been attacked online by anti-vaxxers who accuse him of not having opposed the entire vaccine roll out.

As it became clear the Conservatives were heading towards a resounding defeat at the next election, Togethers' support for Reform became more obvious. This came as Reform's policies became more closely aligned with Together around vaccine harms and leaving the WHO. This led to Farage fronting Action On World Health which calls for the UK to leave the WHO and has anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Aseem Malhotra on the board. At the 2025 Reform Conference Malhotra was introduced as advising the party on health policy before he went on to claim covid vaccines were responsible for cancer in the Royal Family. Reform are now denying that Malhotra has been involved in developing their health policies.

It's important to note that culture war outfits are focused on shaping the policies of political parties to adopt the radical right's programme, and this is what is happening with Reform. I don't believe Farage or Tice are anti-vaxxers, in the same way that Trump wasn't anti-abortion, but adopting the policies wins over a fervent collection of campaigning organisations and followers.

As covid measures were removed Together inevitably pivoted towards the wider culture wars, expanding out to ULEZ, digital ID, farmers inheritance tax, and anti migrant protests. Together and its team amplify conspiracy rhetoric in their campaigning which seeks to turn the radicalised terminally online into a general protest movement which will take to the streets at short notice when called on.

Together is closely intertwined with GB News, Hoenderkamp is a presenter, Miller and Brooks are constantly featured and the rest of the Together cast are used to friendly interviews on the channel. Most GB News presenters have supported Together campaigns. Bev Turner is a regular speaker at Together events, the GB News Washington presenter who interviewed Trump and also asked him in a press conference about suing the BBC, has become a conspiracy theorist since becoming radicalised by covid disinformation.

Another is Neil Oliver, whose latest conspiracy is backing Candece Owen's claims that French President Macron is trying to assassinate her because of efforts to persuade people that France's first lady is in fact a man.

Much as MAGA has its core devotees immersed in conspiracy culture, Together's strategy appears to be based around galvanising taking the radical right from online to the streets.

Further Reading