An activist group opposed to lockdowns and vaccine mandates is reportedly staging combat training sessions across the UK and threatening “direct action”.
According to The Times, Alpha Men Assemble’s activities “are coordinated via a channel” on heavily encrypted messaging service Telegram, where a group with that name has more than 3,000 subscribers after being set up less than a month ago. A statement on the channel said the group fights for “justice, equality and freedom for everyone”, adding: “Our time is now, protect your children and family.”
Beach boxing session
The Times reported that Alpha Men Assemble has hosted several meetings in recent weeks for “training and strategy tactics”. At one session, on a beach at Littlehampton in West Sussex on 28 December, “up to 100 activists took part in boxing drills and a scrummaging exercise, in which two groups of dozens of people tried to push each other back”, said the paper.
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Posts on Telegram said that similar meetings were scheduled to take place this month in Brownhills in Staffordshire, and Motherwell in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. Attendees were told to wear a “black uniform, black boots and a black hat”.
And a “task team” would be selected at the Brownhills meeting, on Saturday, to carry out Alpha Men Assemble’s first “task” later this month.
A Telegram post referring to the North Lanarkshire meet-up urged members to “get together, organise and pull your resources”, and expressed hopes that around 300 “alphas” would attend.
Although the group’s wider plans remain unclear, messages sent in recent weeks “harken for members to show ‘pure unadulterated defiance’”, said the Daily Mail.
However, a Telegram post last week described the sessions as “team building exercises and boxing/MMA [mixed martial arts] sessions to help build discipline and confidence”, and insisted they were a “lawful” group.
Another post said that would-be task team members would need to have “a cool head” and the ability to “control your emotions”, and warned that those who failed to meet this criteria would not be allowed to attend the “direct action”.
‘No mention of any illegal activity’
A man claiming to be an Alpha Men Assemble member told LBC radio presenter Ian Payne on Sunday that the online collective was about “empowering men” and that social media censorship had “cornered” people into joining such Telegram groups.
“There’s been too much of an agenda to feminise men,” said the caller, identified only as Brian from Dorset. “This is about getting people to stand up [for] their own truth and yes they will protect, they will self defend.”
Referring to mandatory vaccination in Austria, he added: “If that comes here, this [group] will defend ourselves”.
However, Brian told Payne that at the Alpha Men Assemble meeting which he had attended, he heard “no mention of any illegal activity”.
Little is known about the group’s members, although a source told The Times that several appeared to have military backgrounds. In a statement posted on Telegram on Sunday, Alpha Men Assemble said that “we are ordinary men and women who want to protect our children, families and future from Draconian rules, dictatorship governments or unlawful acts, statutes and mandates”.
The administrator of Alpha Men Assemble, named as Danny, did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.
But a statement on Telegram said: “We have nothing to hide!!!! Our direct action will be carried out in a peaceful lawful manner.”
The group also vowed to ban anyone carrying out or inciting violence, or racist or unlawful behaviour.
