What does Us For Them's accounts tell us about who they represent?
Grassroots or media construct?
UsForThem launched in May 2020 via the Telegraph with the support of Allison Pearson from the self titled “Brexit Battalion” of media personalities. Its founding member Molly Kingsley had recently written a couple of articles for the Telegraph before the creation of UsForThem.
Claiming to be a grassroots organisation representing tens of thousands of parents calling for a full return of students to schools without any covid measures, within a week of their creation UsForThem were being interviewed across print and broadcast media announcing that with the support of a top law firm they were taking the UK government to court to challenge the decision at the end of March to move schools to only being open for keyworker and vulnerable children.
Full details here
In their short time in existence UsForThem had also managed to secure the services of Ed Barker who provides PR for a select group of Conservative MPs and organisations that include Boris Johnsons leadership campaign, Vote Leave, Blue Collar Conservatives, Conservative Way Forward and Legatum, the owners of GB News that was founded with profits from the Russian fossil fuel company Gazprom.
How did a few plucky mums manage to enlist a top legal firm and a fixer for billionaire lobbyists in a matter of days?Coming readily assembled with media access and big backers, UsForThem look more like a construct of the Brexit Battalion than a genuine grassroots group .
Late 2020 a joint PR campaign was launched in London with Time4Recovery, an opaque anti lockdown company whose founder has links to Nigel Farage and Steve Bannon. In opposition to potential lockdowns as the Alpha wave escalated message vans were driven through London and messages were projected onto the Houses of Parliament and the HQ for the NEU, the largest education union in the UK.
Shortly after launching UsForThem chapters were set up in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In September 2021 UsForThem Bermuda was launched at the same time as the country announced masks would be worn in schools due to rising cases.
Their Facebook page says they are linked to UsForThem UK.
UsForThem Brazil didn't take off, after its set up on Twitter it only tweeted 11 times.
Did UsForThem have access to considerable funding or was this “grassroots” group given such expensive support for free?
UsForThem incorporated in April 2021 so there are no accounts available for the first year of campaigning that allowed them to establish a media platform and the support of a considerable number of Conservative MPs. Their first year accounts were published just before the final deadline in December 2022.
From Companies House
UsForThem are almost £5,000 in debt, however £11,000 of their credit is owed to the three directors, with only £450 owed to trade creditors. They also owe another creditor £1,800.
Who the other creditors are is unknown as the company is exempt from audit.
To quote a friend of the CDP when they saw the accounts, “Three directors who had a spare £11,000 to chuck into a pot to prop themselves up with what looks no chance of fully recovering that money…yep just a bunch of normal mums there.”
UsForThem appear to be almost entirely self funded rather than funded by grassroots donations, despite all of their newsletters and substacks asking their supporters for donations.
They claim the membership of their Facebook group is the evidence of their mass support. Membership of the group did rapidly rise to 10,000 then climbed steadily to 20,000 before plateauing. Since the UK government declared the pandemic over membership has fallen to 16,000. General engagement with posts for a group with this many members is low, except for posts which criticise Pfizer which do gain traction.
Social media analysts have told the CDP that the growth pattern and engagement with the Facebook group suggests their support is artificial.
Their Twitter account has a higher number of fake followers than most organisations of a similar size.
For a group that is lauded by MPs, national broadcast and print media as representing a large number of parents, where is the evidence of their support base? Where are the donations that other grassroots groups usually depens on? Is this a grassroots group with no roots?
When the group with Lawyers4Liberty produced a template letter in March 2021 to oppose masks and testing in schools they only accomplished a total of 615 letters being sent to school leaders.
When UsForThem Scotland attended a rally against measures only the three members from that chapter turned up. Besides a handful of very passionate and active followers UsForThem have not been able to demonstrate they have the support base of the many thousands they claim to have.
This is very different to other children's advocacy groups that have emerged during the pandemic such as Long Covid Kids (LCK) who have grown into a registered charity while UsForThem are a limited company. LCK regularly post many first hand accounts of the thousands of families they represent, however they have struggled to gain the engagement from politicians and the media that UsForThem have had from the outset. The Children's Commisioner has failed to engage with LCK while championing UsForThem, as had Robert Halfon who was chair of the Education Select Committee until he recently took up a post in the Department of Education.
Members of LCK have also faced hostility from high profile members of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health with the UK's clinical lead for covid in children refusing to engage with the plight of the families LCK represent. Meanwhile UsForThem have been supported by members of the RCPCH.
The difference between these two organisations couldn't be starker, one fits the narrative much of the media wanted to foster while the other delivers the inconvenient truth that covid isn't benign for a considerable number of children.
UsForThem has become a career for lead founding member Molly Kingsley, providing her with the opportunity to write for a number of national publications, the GBD’s successor organisation the Brownstone Institute and regular appearances on GBNews. She is also an executive board member of the Together Declaration, the organisation has yet to publish its first accounts but fees for it's tiered membership go up to £1,000 and it regularly holds ticketed events on topics such as 15 minute cities and resisting the Great Reset.
However LCK have been named core participants while UsForThem’s co-application with former Children's Commisioner Anne Longfield was refused.
UsForThem claim to be grassroots but they are a non entity outside of the Westminster bubble of politics and media. They claim to be fighting against the establishment, but with the support of MPs, large sections of the media, and a number of institutions they look more like part of the establishment which has consistently minimised the impact of covid on children than the image they portray of being plucky rebels alone against the world.
So who do they represent?