Together, a group which last year launched a campaign to scrap the UK’s net zero emissions targets, says it is “by and for the public”. But at an event behind closed doors on Friday (20 September), its founder Alan Miller told a different story. 

A promotional reel highlighting its achievements in the past year focused on its media coverage on right-wing news channels and backing from politicians.

The reel showed former Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns – who is also a director of Net Zero Watch, a climate science denial campaign group – speaking at the launch of a Together report attacking non-profit climate groups in January. It also featured a message from disgraced former Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, well-known for spreading Covid conspiracy theories.

The group also emphasised its opposition to government climate policies. 

In his speech to members gathered at the annual general meeting (AGM), Miller claimed the former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to review low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) schemes was evidence of Together’s impact. The group has campaigned against a number of LTN schemes and clean air zones, which it claims are based on “junk science” despite studies showing they have reduced pollution.

Rob Tyson, a marketeer and one of the organisation’s six paid directors also spoke, telling the sparsely filled room that “I believe we have no choice but to fight net zero, every aspect of which threatens to make us poorer, colder, less free.”

At the end of the AGM, members were asked to raise their hands if they wanted Together to continue campaigning against net zero.

Almost all did so to audible cries of ‘Yes’. Only one person opposed.

Miller, who previously ran a lobby group for nightclubs, founded Together in 2021 as a platform to oppose vaccine mandates for healthcare workers and restrictions on hospitality during the pandemic. Since then, the group has campaigned against a wide range of issues, from central bank digital currencies to net zero, which it says are impinging on civil liberties.

Over a hundred members had come for the meeting held in Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, a church and conference centre just five minutes walk from the Houses of Parliament. Speaking on a stage in front of the church’s towering organ and large signs featuring Together branding, Miller acknowledged that the group has been accused of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.

“Being called far-right is not pleasant. It’s become so ridiculous now,” he told a largely grey-haired audience. “We’ve often called conspiracists, called all these names, but none of us really like any of that.” 

But later that evening several speakers at Together’s third anniversary event would go on to repeat conspiracy theories and misinformation about the pandemic and net zero. One guest joked that “Maybe we should have let the Nazis win”.

Just outside the hall where Miller was speaking, was a stand run by an anti-vaccine conspiracy group handing out leaflets claiming the Covid vaccine is “unproven” and could increase the likelihood of autoimmune diseases, when in fact the opposite is true. 

Together has itself attempted to undermine confidence in the safety of Covid vaccines, despite extensive research confirming their safety and effectiveness.

In January, the group said it was “incredible” that the then prime minister Rishi Sunak should “mindlessly assert ‘Covid vaccines are safe’” in a post on X. It has also backed a report which called for the government to pause its vaccination programme over a number of widely debunked conspiracy theories about its safety, including that the vaccine alters human DNA. 

The Main Event

A few hours later, Together ran a separate event for the public in the Grade II* listed building that featured a string of high-profile speakers and over a thousand attendees.

The evening began with a video message from Bernie Spofforth, a woman who was arrested for sharing a social media post that contained misinformation about the suspect of the recent Southport attacks. Spofforth, who was later released without charge, claimed she had been silenced and thanked the audience for their support.

Among the evening’s guest speakers were Bev Turner and Neil Oliver, two presenters on the right-wing broadcaster GB News. 

Oliver, who has previously said that “there is no climate crisis”, gave a rambling speech which devolved into crude anecdotes. At one point, he told a story about an indigenous person in Canada who he claimed created a knife moulded from their own frozen faeces when they were left with nothing. Oliver said it demonstrated “the indomitability of the human spirit”.

GB News gives a prominent platform to anti-climate views. A DeSmog investigation last year found that one in three GB News hosts had broadcast climate science denial in 2022, while nearly half had attacked net zero.

Together seemed to have attracted significant support from the right-wing media. Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson – a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the UK’s leading climate science denial group – had been due to talk but cancelled at the last minute due to illness. 

Dan Wootton, a former GB News presenter, also spoke on a panel hosted by Miller. 

He told the audience to trust individuals instead of mainstream media, which he claimed, without evidence, were involved in a cover up about the COVID vaccine. Wootton launched his own platform earlier this year after he was sacked from GB News and found to have broken Ofcom’s broadcasting rules.

Also speaking on the panel was Winston Marshall, a former banjoist for the rock band Mumford & Sons. Marshall, whose father Paul co-owns GB News and has recently bought The Spectator magazine, said he preferred speaking on independent media platforms and social media, as opposed to mainstream media, because it offered him more freedom.

“I don’t even have to be particularly good or thorough on a topic. I just have to talk about it,” he said.

Other speakers included former Brexit Party MEP Claire Fox, now a peer, and Ben Habib, a former deputy leader of Reform UK.

In a question and answer session with the audience, Habib appeared to lend credence to the Great Reset conspiracy theory, which claims without evidence that a group of world leaders orchestrated the pandemic to take control of the global economy. 

“Whether or not Klaus Schwab is pulling everyone’s strings or not remains to be determined,” said Habib, referring to the executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, who is at the centre of the conspiracy theory.

Together says it does not back any political parties but the group has forged a close alliance with Reform, which campaigns to “scrap all of net zero”, advocates for increased fossil fuel extraction, including the opening of new coal mines, and has cast doubt on climate science. A promotional reel at the event showed Miller at a Reform campaign event in Clacton and on the campaign trail with the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice.

The night’s keynote speaker was Frank Furedi, director of MCC Brussels, a think tank backed by the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Furedi claimed that the EU’s Green Deal, a package of policies aimed at making the bloc carbon neutral, was being used to attack farmers.

MCC Brussels is an offshoot of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a think tank that in 2022 was awarded by the Hungarian government a 10 percent stake – equivalent to more than $1.3 billion – in MOL, a Hungarian multinational oil and gas company.

When previously asked by DeSmog about the funding sources of MCC Brussels, Furedi said that he maintained “complete independence” over its output and agenda.

He added that he would be “prepared to take money from the devil, because I think I’ve got enough integrity, that you know, I’m not going to play to their tune.”

The evening also featured a musical performance by comedian Dominic Frisby, who sang that the state of Britain was so bad that “maybe we should have let the Nazis win.” 

“No stupid pronouns, taxes would be down. We’d have Hugo Boss clothing and luggage,” he said, before repeatedly clarifying that it was a joke.

Together does not disclose its funders, claiming on its donations page that it has “existed on a shoestring budget thanks to a small number of donations from concerned friends, but mostly the tireless efforts of a small team of volunteers.”

Miller briefly discussed the organisation’s finances at its AGM, but did not go into specifics. One slide showed that the group had raised more than £500,000 in the most recent financial year, suggesting it has more resources than claimed.

The majority of the funds appeared to have come from donations rather than members’ dues, according to the slide, although the names of the donors were not revealed.