First published on Substack
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As usual, the state propagandists at The Guardian—who evidently despise investigative journalism—have produced standard government PR spin to promote the emerging UK dictatorship. In this case, off the back of the appalling injustice committed at Richard D. Hall’s trial, The Guardian is supporting a proposed law which, if enacted, will destroy the independent media.
The envisaged “Eve’s Law”—nominally advocated by Martin Hibbert, the claimant in Hall’s kangaroo court hearing—presents no threat to The Guardian. It will censor only independent investigative journalists who question power. The subject is of no concern to The Guardian, a bastion of the legacy media.
The Guardian’s stated mission is to “change the world” and “build hope.” The essential duty of the news media—namely, to act as a public check on the branches of government—was long ago abandoned by the legacy media and is now anathema to them. The legacy media unquestioningly serves the public-private partnership we call “the state.” Certainly, The Guardian is no exception.
The alleged Manchester Arena bombing occurred on 22nd May 2017. Although nearly eight years have passed, the incident is viewed by the UK government as the most important UK “terrorist attack” of the 21st century. It is the event the UK state continues to exploit to supposedly justify some of its most dictatorial legislation. Widespread public belief in the Manchester story remains crucial to government plans.
In December 2024, the Home Office employed social media influencer Max Balegde—a so-called “Manchester Arena bombing survivor”—to promote the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill. Apparently, Balegde is helping the UK government “inform the public about the ways they are being made safer.” Named after purported Manchester victim Martyn Hett, the implications of the bill, also known as “Martyn’s Law,” are horrific.
Martyn’s Law was a central theme of the King Charles’ 2024 opening of parliament speech. It mandates that for events attended by more than 800 people, enhanced “invacuation”—entry—security will be imposed. This will include, but is not limited to, “comprehensive security systems,” “searching and screening individuals,” and behaviour monitoring.
But the bill goes even further than that. As noted by legal experts, the scope of Martyn’s Law is so wide that it will affect every business with a building occupancy capacity of 100 people. It even applies to such mundane premises as supermarkets!
Claire Burrows, a partner at the independent law firm Brabners, has noted:
Martyn’s Law is set to affect thousands of businesses across a wide range of sectors. [. . .] [B]usinesses operating across retail, hospitality, health, education and sport will be affected. [. . .] Failure to comply with the requirements look set to result in the regulator being able to issue compliance notices and have powers to issue a financial penalty of the higher of £18m or 5% of worldwide revenue for continued non-compliance. [. . .] [D]uty holders should begin to develop a good security culture by considering proportionate measures to enhance the experience of visitors at public places, without impacting on accessibility or personal freedoms.
Martyn’s Law is accompanied by the UK government’s push to roll out biometric digital ID via its so-called “trust framework.” The state’s allegedly “robust” digital ID system has been developed based upon its Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA). Consequently, the state claims that subsequent biometric ID technologies, such as facial recognition and iris scanning entry systems, will protect “the privacy of citizens.”
It is not hard to see how the bill’s authors aim to assuage Burrows’ concerns about potentially restricted access to services and the possible detrimental impact on “personal freedoms.” Indeed, claims of improving access and protecting freedoms are hardwired into their sales pitch on biometric digital ID.
The “trust framework” will supposedly “protect privacy, boost security, and enable greater accessibility.” Of course, this is pure propaganda. “Inclusion” will only be offered to compliant citizens. For everyone else—those of us vicariously identified as undesirable—biometric digital ID will deliver exclusion.
The UK government commitment to roll out biometric digital ID is commensurate with UN SDG 16.9, which promises to create systems that will hoover up the data from all “interoperable” digital ID products—such as biometric entry “security systems”—and store that data in a global, centrally controlled database. Though we have nothing to worry about, because SDG 16.9 compatible products and systems will, we are told, protect our privacy.
Digital biometric ID will also be needed to “onboard” banking services through which we will access the planned digital monetary system.
In addition, it is clearly proposed that we will need digital ID to use the internet. Ofcom, the online regulator empowered by the UK Online Safety Act (OSA), demands that social media companies introduce “age verification” for all users. Such verification will require us to submit our biometric digital ID.
The digital ID ambitions of the UK state are limitless:
To prove who you are across the economy today, you have to use a patchwork of paperwork from the government and the private sector. Proving your age in the supermarket. Opening a bank account. Buying a house. These processes are complicated, time-consuming and expensive. [. . .] There is a better way to check that someone is who they say they are. We call this “digital identity”. [. . .] Using a digital identity will be completely voluntary, [. . .] you’ll be able to choose from a range of digital identity and attribute providers. [. . .] The provider will do the hard work of proving that you are who you say you are.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?
You simply hand over all your personal data to a global public-private partnership (G3P) and they will decide if you are who you say you are. Providing the G3P are satisfied that you have met their stipulated requirements, with your biometric digital ID linked to every aspect of your life, the G3P will “authorise” you to enter a supermarket, go to a gig or use your own “programmable” money—which the G3P will program.
Via your “digital identity” everything you do, everywhere you go, every purchase you make, every opinion you express online will be monitored, recorded and analysed by the G3P. If you step out of line, you can be punished by AI-controlled algorithms. Effectively biometric digital ID will create a digital gulag. What’s not to like?
Using biometric digital ID will, of course, be entirely voluntary. You will be free to reject it as long as you don’t need to work, pay bills, buy food, travel, or access your community’s services in any way. You can be a social outcast and live life as a poverty-stricken, homeless hermit if you want. It’s your decision.
We are all acutely familiar with this Hobson’s choice. It is a ubiquitous deceit employed by the state and its partners.
Exploiting Manchester
To get the biometric digital ID ball rolling, “Martyn’s Law”—a direct consequence of the Manchester Arena narrative—will inevitably corral more of us into accepting state surveillance. Given the implied duty to protect nearly all public spaces, digital ID will be an entry requirement everywhere, if the state gets its way.
The evidence clearly indicates that there was no bomb. This suggests that any victims who appear to have been harmed could not have been harmed by the shrapnel bomb said to have been detonated by Salman Abedi. There is certainly no evidence that Salman Abedi killed himself. For one thing, his body was clearly not lying where the state claims it was found.
Perhaps this explains why Max Balegde was chosen to front the Martyn’s Law propaganda. There were fifty-nine survivors listed as having been inside the City Room when the “bomb” allegedly exploded. Yet the state didn’t ask—or perhaps couldn’t convince—any of those so-called survivors to step forward to present this PR campaign. Instead, the state chose “TikTok megastar” Max, who wasn’t anywhere near the alleged bomb.
The Manchester bang is alleged to have occurred in the City Room (foyer) of the Manchester Arena. The City Room is located outside of the main arena (auditorium) on the South West corner of the complex and is separated from the main arena by a wide concourse that circumferences the auditorium.
According to Balegde, he and his little sister were at the opposite end of the Arena when the bang occurred. Like many others in the Arena that night, Max said he was injured in the stampede from the auditorium. Having fled the Arena in comparative safety, Max reports that he had no idea what happened. He adamantly maintains, however, that his little sister saw a terrorist attack. Obviously, that is not true.
His little sister was probably terrified after being caught up in the stampede, as were thousands of others. But neither she nor Max could have seen any evidence of a bomb or a terrorist attack—only of panic caused by a loud bang. Max states that he doesn’t know anyone who reportedly died or was injured by a bomb.
This is not to downplay the trauma Max and his sister experienced. We know that the stampede began in the Arena just nine seconds after the bang was heard. As others, such as Jordan Kenney, attested, the scene and events at the Manchester Arena were petrifying. Many people were injured in the stampede.
But Max did not witness a terrorist attack. Everyone who was not in the City Room at the time thought there was a bomb. That’s because they were caught up in a frightening emergency situation and were later told—primarily by the legacy media—that it was caused by a terrorist attack.
Max makes this point abundantly clear:
[W]e’re trying to get home the radio’s on and like it took us probably like two or three hours to get home. Like half an hour by half an hour, they’re giving more and more updates like, you know, incident has happened at the Manchester Arena, potential Terror threat at the Manchester Arena, definite terror attack and like two people confirmed dead, three people confirmed dead. And we were just like, just could not believe it.
The independent journalist Richard D. Hall was the first named journalist to report the evidence showing there was no bomb. He was subsequently successfully sued for harassment by Manchester Arena victim Martin Hibbert. Hall is currently appealing the judgment.
During the trial it emerged that Mr Hibbert was motivated, in part, to sue Hall because, according to the prosecution, Hall had exposed his daughter Eve to public scrutiny and the family did not want Eve to be known as “that girl from the Arena.” Therefore, it is entirely in keeping with his concern for the privacy of his daughter that the first thing Martin Hibbert did, following the ruling, was announce his campaign to lobby for a law—expressly linked to the purported Manchester Arena attack—to be publicly named after his daughter.
“Eve’s Law” may be what Martin Hibbert wants, but he is not alone in that desire. He is clearly being supported by the state to bring it to fruition. Prior to the trial, the legacy media reported:
Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has spoken to Martin about the potential for a new law that better protects survivors from harassment and conspiracy theories.
I have stressed this point about “conspiracy theories” many times before. But, to reiterate, the working scientific definition of “conspiracy theory”—found in the academic work of Professor Neil Levy—reads as follows:
[A]n explanation that conflicts with the account advanced by the relevant epistemic authorities.
Continuing the definition: These “epistemic authorities” are:
[. . .] the distributed network of knowledge claim gatherers and testers that includes engineers and politics professors, security experts and journalists
As far as the state is concerned, a “conspiracy theory” is anything that questions the official account or the preferred state narrative. Or, put more bluntly, a “conspiracy theory” is any explanation that questions power.
Given his testimony at Hall’s trial, it is implausible to suggest that Martin Hibbert is alone capable of mounting a serious campaign to lobby for national government legislation. He is clearly heavily backed by the state or elements within the state.
Eve’s Law appears to have been a planned outcome of the Manchester Attack. Just a year after the Manchester event, in 2018, the Kerslake Report into the response to the terrorist attack was sharply critical of the way the “media” treated the “victims” and bereaved families:
The Panel was shocked and dismayed by the accounts of the families of their experiences with some of the media. [. . .] To have experienced such intrusive and overbearing behaviour at a time of such enormous vulnerability seemed to us to be completely and utterly unacceptable. [. . .] Most participants who commented on their experience of the media in the attack aftermath were negative. People talked about feeling ‘hounded’ and ‘bombarded’. [. . .] Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.
The alleged basis for Eve’s Law was clearly outlined, by the state, in 2018, long before any lawsuit was filed against Hall. All of this reportedly “intrusive and overbearing behaviour” was exhibited by members of the legacy media. No legacy media journalist has ever been sued for harassment by any Manchester Arena victim. Martin Hibbert is the face of a publicity drive attempting to justify a censorship law aimed squarely at the independent media.
In short, Eve’s Law is yet another direct and seemingly intentional consequence of the extremely dubious Manchester Attack.
In the article referenced above, the state stenographers at The Guardian reported:
Hibbert is planning to campaign for a new criminal offence protecting victims of crime or tragedies from harassment by conspiracy theorists, which he wants to be known as Eve’s Law after his daughter. He also plans to establish a star chamber of pro-bono barristers who would represent these victims on a no-win, no-fee basis, as he said legal fees were preventing people from suing those hounding them online.
Initially, Martin Hibbert was said to be seeking a law to stop conspiracy theorists questioning the purported victims of terror attacks. Now, it seems those ambitions have extended to halting the questioning of statements offered by anyone who purports to be the victim of a crime or a public tragedy. Mission creep is already underway.
We can be certain that the legacy media won’t dispute the public-private state’s narratives. The only people who will are those labelled conspiracy theorists. Among their ranks are every independent media journalist and outlet.
If Eve’s Law is enacted as proposed, it will be virtually impossible for any independent media journalist or outlet to question power. If they do, any alleged “victim” will be funded by the state to sue the offending investigative journalist for harassment—not under existing legislation but under Eve’s Law.
Questioning power will be punishable and a prohibitively expensive litigious act. State narratives will effectively be protected in UK law, and the British public will be forced to rely upon the legacy media—called by the UN the “gatekeepers of news and information”—for their tightly restricted window on the world.
For all intents and purposes, informed democratic debate will practically cease in the UK.
Setting a case precedent to underpin the push for Eve’s Law was blatantly a key aspect of the ruling issued against Hall. Karen Steyn—who describes herself a “High Court judge”—said, in her written judgment:
In Sube, Warby J observed [. . .] that “nothing short of a conscious or negligent abuse of media freedom will justify a finding of harassment”. This approach is not limited to journalism emanating from the mainstream press. [. . .] [I]t “extends to citizen journalism of the type engaged in by bloggers.” [. . .] It is common ground that it applies to Mr Hall’s publications.
Indeed, it did apply to Hall’s publications. This was possible only because the journalists’ “standard defence”—under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (PHA), which Martin Hibbert relied upon in Hall’s case—was denied to him.
Under normal circumstances, an honest journalist could rely upon PHA s.1(3)(a) and provide evidence showing he was conducting an investigation with the intention of “preventing or detecting crime.” Moreover, under PHA s.1(3)(a), that same honest journalist could further demonstrate “that in the particular circumstances the pursuit of [their] course of conduct was reasonable.” If satisfied, the court would reject the harassment claim. Hall was not permitted to offer this defence.
Before finding against Hall, the High Court first issued a “summary judgment” ruling that all the evidence—of the kind any investigative journalist accused of harassment would otherwise rely upon—was inadmissible in his case. Steyn leaned heavily on the summary judgment, describing the entirety of Hall’s evidence “absurd and fantastical.”
The High Court did not consider any of the observable physical evidence Hall presented in his defence. Instead, Richard H. Davison, who issued the summary judgment on behalf of the state, indicated that he had seen some of it but then simply dismissed it out of hand without allowing any of it to be examined in court.
By decree—summary judgment—the High Court would not accept that real, observable physical evidence constituted any kind of evidence at all. Essentially, the High Court found in favour of Martin Hibbert before the trial began.
The ignored evidence presented by Hall included video footage of the bomb scene called the Barr footage. Analysis of the Barr footage shows, among other things, that there was no structural damage inside the City Room after the alleged bombing nor were there any injuries consistent with the bombing described by the state.
Yet, despite the evidence presented by Hall being described as “absurd and fantastical,” it is not so meaningless that the state’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit hasn’t gone to the lengths of ordering video hosting platforms to block the public’s access to it.
If the Barr footage shows the bomb scene and is therefore possibly deemed “too graphic” for public scrutiny, why wasn’t it at least submitted into evidence at the Saunders Inquiry—the official Manchester Arena inquiry? Why weren’t key witnesses such as Mr Barr, who filmed the scene, asked to testify at the Inquiry?
If it is just “absurd” nonsense, as the High Court proclaims, and does not amount to evidence worthy of examination, why does the UK Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit need to ban it? The Barr footage cannot be both completely irrelevant and highly sensitive for the British state at the same time.
Time To Wake Up
The threat to independent media could not be more pressing. If Eve’s Law is enacted, only the independent media’s questioning of power will be subject to it.
In the extremely unlikely event that a legacy media journalist is ever prosecuted for harassment by a “victim,” that will be under the Protection from Harassment Act, so he or she will be able to rely upon the journalist’s previously described standard defence. But, since all independent media journalists are labelled “conspiracy theorists” by the state, they will be prosecuted under Eve’s Law.
As such, any other independent media journalist like Hall or independent media outlet will not be allowed to offer a reasonable defence. It is possible that the UK state’s courts will rule any evidence cited by the independent media as inadmissible by summary judgment. Assuming Eve’s Law progresses as planned, it is perhaps more likely that any evidence brought forth by conspiracy theorists will be automatically ruled inadmissible by virtue of being legally declared a “conspiracy theory” under Eve’s Law.
The entire construct of the state’s proposed censorship regime is based on a core presupposition: Conspiracy theorists are dangerous subversives who don’t have any evidence to back up any of their “fantastical” claims.
This presupposition has already allegedly been demonstrated in the High Court by the utter travesty of justice served against Hall. If we let the state maintain its deception, we can wave goodbye to independent journalism. If Eve’s Law is enacted, dictatorship will ultimately result.
The obvious course of action, still barely open to every genuine British independent media journalist and outlet, is to report the observable physical evidence that the state refuses to acknowledge and is clearly desperate to hide. The Barr footage, the Bickerstaff video, and the police chatter recordings need to be reported by every independent media outlet worth their salt and hosted on websites as widely as possible but preferably on more censorship-resistant platforms.
Doing so would demonstrate that so-called conspiracy theorists are not fringe lunatics. In reality, they are just ordinary people who ask legitimate, rational questions of the authorities.
Even if the evidence presented by Hall does not convince everyone or even many, that evidence nonetheless demonstrates that those highlighting it, including Hall, are logical people exercising their supposed democratic rights. If the evidence was known by the wider public, the judgment would be exposed for the lawfare it is. The state’s whole constructed edifice—allegedly justifying Eve’s Law—would collapse.
Yet, remarkably, some of the leading UK independent media outlets and journalists do not consider the evidence reported by Hall “important.”
On this issue, it is time for the asleep members of the independent media to wake up. They should understand that the official Manchester account is absolutely central to the state’s planned attack on independent journalism. In this regard, Manchester is not just another terrorist attack.
If the major UK independent media outlets don’t come together and oppose Eve’s Law then, once it is enacted, independent journalists won’t be able to question state narratives.
The legacy media has completely failed in its public duty. Eve’s Law is intended to ensure that the independent media, likewise, will never again serve the public interest.
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