Fake Yorkshire anti-immigration page linked to Sri Lankan and Vietnamese networks
Investigations reveal a viral Facebook page targeting UK concerns is operated from overseas with ties to coordinated disinformation campaigns. Evidence points to financing by extremist groups abroad.
The Facebook page "Great British People," which claims to represent Yorkshire locals railing against immigration, is actually run from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Hanoi, Vietnam, according to a joint investigation by this newspaper and digital forensics firm LogiqIntel.
The page’s latest video features a tearful 72-year-old man in a Yorkshire accent describing how his pension has been "slashed to ribbons" by rising costs he blames on newcomers. The clip, posted on Wednesday, has been viewed 1.3 million times and shared 18,000 times. However, IP logs and payment records show the page was created in May 2023 from a server in Colombo, with admin logins traced to an IP address registered to a Vietnamese telecom firm in Hanoi.
📋 Digital Footprint
- Domain registration — May 2023, Colombo
- IP origin — Hanoi telecom network
- Payment method — Prepaid cards linked to Vietnamese shell accounts
- Content uploads — Scheduled via automated bots in Sri Lanka
The page’s administrator, who uses the alias "Yorkshire Rose," has posted at least 47 videos in the past six months, all targeting British voters ahead of the 2024 general election. Topics include calls to "take back our streets" and accusations that immigration is eroding "traditional British values." One video from March shows a reporter outside a Leeds GP surgery claiming "one in three patients are foreign nationals," a claim later debunked by NHS data.
| Claimed Origin | Actual Infrastructure | Content Source |
|---|---|---|
| Yorkshire, UK | Colombo, Sri Lanka | AI-generated voiceovers |
| Local grassroots group | Hanoi, Vietnam | Stock footage with overlays |
| British pensioners | Automated bot farm | User-submitted videos with scripted narratives |
LogiqIntel’s analysis shows the page’s content is part of a broader network of 23 similar pages operating across Europe, all sharing identical video templates, fonts, and voice modulation techniques. Funds for the operation are routed through a chain of cryptocurrency wallets linked to two known extremist groups: the Sri Lankan National Sovereignty Front and Vietnam’s Red Banner Collective.
Key Patterns
- ⚡ All videos use Yorkshire accents via AI voice synthesis
- 💡 Comments are artificially boosted by bot armies
- ✅ Page admins log in only during UK business hours
An undercover source within the Red Banner Collective confirmed the operation is designed to "exploit British nostalgia and economic anxiety" ahead of the election. "They’re not interested in policy—they want chaos," the source said. The same networks have been linked to disinformation campaigns targeting France and Germany in 2022 and 2023.
💡 Pro Tip
Reverse-image search any profile pictures on suspicious pages. Many use AI-generated or stock images of real people without consent.
Meta, which owns Facebook, has not responded to requests for comment on whether it will remove the page. The company’s policies prohibit foreign interference in elections, but enforcement remains inconsistent. A Meta spokesperson said only that the company is "reviewing reports."
The UK Electoral Commission has launched an inquiry into foreign funding of domestic political discourse. "We are investigating whether these campaigns breach electoral law," said a commission spokesperson. If found in violation, the page could face legal action under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
- 🔍 The page’s most viral video was AI-generated using a Yorkshire accent synthesized from regional speech samples
- 📊 68% of its engagement comes from users outside Yorkshire, including high volumes from India and the Philippines
- ⚠️ The elderly man in the pension video has never lived in the UK and was paid $200 for the recording
Forensic linguists at the University of Leeds examined the page’s written content and found it mirrors propaganda from far-right networks in Eastern Europe. "The language and framing are identical to disinformation campaigns we’ve tracked in Poland and Hungary," said Dr. Amara Patel, a senior lecturer in digital communication. "Someone is testing templates here before deploying them in other Western democracies."