Covid-19: trapped in a hidden camera, English anti-vax activist Piers Corbyn accepts 10,000 pounds to stop criticizing AstraZeneca

Such is taken who thought he was taking. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, Piers Corbyn has become one of the leaders of the antivax movement in the United Kingdom. A keen opponent of health measures, a follower of conspiracy theories, the brother of controversial former Labor Party boss Jeremy Corbyn has even launched a campaign called “Stop New Normal” to make his fight heard. But recently, he seems to have given up his convictions for a while for a nice sum of money… In a video shot with a hidden camera, two comedians indeed explain how they trapped the activist, by offering him 10,000 pounds sterling (13,000 euros) and making him believe that this sum came from AstraZeneca.

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“Archie Manners and I convinced antivax Piers Corbyn to accept £10,000 he thought was coming from AstraZeneca to stop criticizing his vaccine. Except that it was Monopoly tickets and that we recorded the entire sequence”, welcomed Josh Pieters, South African YouTuber domiciled in London, specialist in hoaxes. His friend Archie Manners is a British comedian and magician, host of a reality show on MTV International. The two men have almost 1.5 million subscribers on their YouTube channel.

A skillfully orchestrated scenario

In their video, Josh Pieters and Archie Manners reveal the transaction, but also behind the scenes of their hidden camera. Their starting cover? The first is the son of an investor who made his fortune in a chain of restaurants in South Africa and who owns shares in the pharmaceutical alliance AstraZeneca. The second is his business advisor. The two young men intend to offer Piers Corbyn a wad of cash, in exchange for which the latter will have to stop his criticism of the Swedish-British firm to focus its attacks on its rivals Pfizer and Moderna. First, they contact their target by email, offering them a donation for their antivax campaign. “Sounds interesting,” replies Piers Corbyn, who asks them to arrange a meeting.

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Monday July 30, Josh Pieters and Archie Manners therefore find their victim on the terrace of a London restaurant surrounded by cameras, with the complicity of the managers. After the usual formalities, the South African YouTuber gets to the heart of the matter, explaining to him that his family has placed money at AstraZeneca, for strictly professional reasons. “We have common interests”, continues the young man, drawing a wad of banknotes in a paper envelope. "Wow, that's amazing!" Piers Corbyn then exclaims, emphasizing that he can only accept the offer if he is not influenced in his speech. The two false businessmen ask him, in return, to turn his attacks towards Pfizer and Moderna instead. What the activist accepts, before drawing up on a corner of the table a list of the positive points of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to the comedians. “It is not a messenger RNA vaccine, which causes magnetic things”, can we hear him say in particular.

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Monopoly tickets

Then comes the delicate moment for the two comedians. To keep the realism of the situation, they show their target a real wad of cash, which they now have to retrieve right under Piers Corbyn's face. Two actors come into play: the girlfriend of Josh Pieters, declaring herself a fan of the activist, asks him for a selfie to distract him. Meanwhile, another man slips, neither seen nor known, behind the two YouTubers to exchange the two kraft envelopes. The small group continues their discussion, and Piers Corbyn ends up leaving with the fake money, not without explaining to his two interlocutors that if asked where the money comes from, he will simply say "it comes from a businessman who manages restaurants.

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If the video does not show his reaction to the discovery of the subterfuge, the activist was quick to react on the site of his "Stop New Normal" campaign. He immediately denounced an assembly and a biased representation of the exchange he had had with the two comedians. “It is false to say that I have accepted any change in policy. I told these imposters that all Covid vaccines are dangerous and that we will not change our discourse on vaccines and the vaccine passport”, he justified himself in a video. But the damage was done: Piers Corbyn was caught in the act, accepting money he thought came from AstraZeneca. A gesture viewed in three days by more than 460,000 people.