Hate Not Hope: The Psych Ward Strikes Back

Imagine our surprise, ten days after documenting the antics of a notorious activist "charity," Bar-trained Englishman and co-editor of The Restorationist, Michael Reiners, woke up to a malicious communication submitted to his personal Wordpress website, threatening to reveal his "secret identity." Reiners (known affectionately as "colonel" due to his unwavering treatment of the law and tedious obsession with Lincoln Cathedral) likes a beer, but a secret life as an anime deviant with a urine fetish? It's a bit of a reach – even for a gently-spoken Cambridge man with large hair.

If Reiners has a "secret identity," it will almost certainly be some kind of high priest for a weird cathedral cult where men with beards gather to exhibit their rare photographs of Perpendicular Gothic architecture, examining the possibilities of convening a national parliament, likely around Lincoln's copy of Magna Carta.

We've been overwhelmed by the messages we've received about the group Hope Not Hate. The sheer number of victims claiming they've been libelled; the despicably petty tantrums from their staff and associates; Musk condemning their partners as criminal; the 2012 Panorama scandal; allegations of links to members of Red Action and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK); collaboration with Farage's UKIP to filter BNP members; attempts to raise money in the US; pressuring the Charity Commission (oh the irony); the disturbing incidents no police force seems to want to investigate. Of specific note is the misogynistic aggression by infamous Twitter/X agitator Dave Lawrence against the rather gentle and lovely Liberty Belles (Elizabeth, Natoya, Paula, Catherine and Belinda).

For any survivor of domestic violence – male or female – the tactics and behaviours will be eerily and distressingly familiar as Cluster B indicators: stalking, doxxing, smear campaigns, and rage after ego injury. It will be particularly acute for those practising same-sex behaviours: relationship violence is reported by 61.1% of bisexual women (~74.6% higher), and 43.8% of lesbian women (~25% higher). Studies indicate it is three times higher in same-sex male situations, as is narcissism.

However, most people are curious why no-one has bothered to look into his fake passport. Being suckers for issues others aren't doing anything about, we absolutely did.

Walter Mitty In Wetherspoons

Reading Shukman's little book, "Year Of The Rat" (a sample of which you can find here), one cannot help but feel an increasing sense of pity. If you live in Hollywood and are familiar with its ways – as this author is, as are Milo, Leilani, even the chairwoman of Great British PAC – you know this person: the serial fame-craving fantasist shopping a screenplay featuring themselves as the main character of their own movie. A bad one, which would get a pass, because it's a vomit draft.

Harry wanted to try being the Reddit version of Jason Bourne. He started small, made a blog, and got a taste for lying.

I had found this out while experimenting with undercover reporting for my blog, Scout. Inventing a false name, I got in touch with conspiracy theorists and far-right activists, asking to join.

While researching stories for my website, I would consult with HOPE not hate, which in addition to monitoring the far right runs infiltrators into extremist groups to disrupt their operations. I contacted their research team in late 2022 to discuss working together.

Harry appeared to be quite keen to be groomed by an older man. A comforting, but exciting man who had taken Bond-esque trips abroad he first met at the Wellcome Collection:

Patrik Hermansson became my handler. He was a perfect choice. In 2016, he had pretended to be a master’s student on exchange from Sweden in order to infiltrate extremist think tanks. During our project, Patrik was patient, attentive and calm.

And this appears to be where Shukman's willing descent into moral gray area began, giving his tortured readership some insight into the clumsy attempts at tradecraft we witness later.

Together, we built my new identity, planning my debut in far-right society. First, we created Chris. Fake identities are easier to remember if they are anchored to the truth, so I inverted my biography to create an altered version of myself. My parents and siblings now went by their middle names, for instance.

We wanted Chris to avoid too much attention, so we gave him a job that sounded so tedious people would be unlikely to ask a second or third question about it. Chris was a strategy consultant working in support function optimisation.

Like a fifteen-year-old imagining himself in a movie, Harry's disappointment that spy work is more cumbersome than anticipated, tortures his prose like a far-right extremist weaves a Nazi basket.

Next to sort was the camera. This is much less cool than its Hollywood equivalent. In spy movies, there are glasses, lapel pins and even contact lenses that send a clear live feed back to an operations room. The real thing is clunky and frustrating.

A puzzling standout, yet worthy booknote, is Shukman's poor Q-department training over the "antifascist" weapon of doxing/doxxing. Despite widespread education on the concept in the superhero social justice character universe. Harry struggles to comprehend what eleven year-olds have to every day in British schools.

Merriam-Webster describes it thus: "to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge", even placing a warning against it on the dictionary's website, with a statement on one such variety of real-world harm it can cause. Twitter’s privacy policy, as of March 2024, describes it as the “sharing [of] someone’s private information online without their permission.”

A 2012 FBI memo addresses doxxing, and the potential for criminality arising from it. In 2013 it was described by Ryan Goodrich, and its malicious political dimensions discussed by Bruce Schneier in 2016. The same year The Guardian decried it as a tool used for intimidation; The BBC explained it as: "where a person has often-intimate details of their lives unearthed and spread by anonymous internet users," while Wikipedia's current stated definition conjectures it involves sharing "private information obtained through criminal or otherwise fraudulent means".

Reiners himself has suggested the action ought to carry criminal penalty for The Critic in June 2024 – something many states in the west have begun a legal conversation over. Revenge porn, for example, is criminal under these auspices. He is on record supporting victims of doxxing from The Secret Barrister to Raw Egg Nationalist, by way of suggesting criminalisation would have protected migrant processing hotels and law firms in the summer 2024 riots. The Colonel puts forward doxxing is:

...frequently used by professional activists & others with malicious intent – oftentimes these individuals will hide behind the suggestion that doxxing is in the public interest (whatever that means at this point).

It is unusual then, that the comforting-yet-mature Hermansson – so patient and attentive with his Swedish good looks – briefs his twink sidekick essentially with an inverse definition:

I hesitate on this last question, and Patrik pauses the interview. 'You can tell them you don't want to get doxxed,' he says. Doxxing means the identification of an anonymous activist. I write down his answer in a notepad, hoping I can remember it when the time comes.

Tradecraft didn't come naturally to Shukman-Bourne, double-o-hitler-eighty-eight. As the pain of the text drags on, he feigns ignorance; describing the general annoyance, inconvenience and needless anxiety of accidentally doxxing himself:

The heartstopper came when I logged onto a video call with an American eugenicist on my personal email account. Five minutes in, I saw my real name on the screen. I hung up and waited until I could breathe normally again. I rejoined using my Chris account, my face burning, ready with a lie about how I had been using a borrowed work laptop.

Annoyance, inconvenience and needless anxiety indeed. As the law stands, the Communications Act 2003 – Section 127(2) (as amended) says:

A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, they—

(a) send by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that they know to be false,
(b) cause such a message to be sent, or
(c) persistently make use of a public electronic communications network.

The theme continues in this disastrous tome, where he outright admits:

it might be ironic that I lied and cheated for a year, what follows is all true.

But it doesn't matter, because Harry "found" a failed filmmaker who needed the gig and would document his time fighting Quantum and their evil pubgoing basket types:

Halfway through the year undercover, the film director Havana Marking began making a documentary about HOPE not hate, and recorded some of the briefing and debriefing sessions I had with Patrik.

Harry discovered something extraordinary. The dangerous extremist fringe of the "far-right" was composed of ordinary, normal Englishmen and Englishwomen.

So what did we find? Contrary to the perception that the British far right is only composed of the kind of lageredup, English Defence League skinheads you see on TV, I met people from all walks of life. In the first group I infiltrated, a far-right community called the Basketweavers, I saw that they came from all classes and educational backgrounds –  I met aristocrats and the unemployed; people with PhDs and school dropouts (see Chapter 1). Some were happy just meeting up once or twice a week, while others wanted to travel overseas to far- right conferences and develop connections with foreign activists.

Not all of the groups I joined were that proficient at activism, and were just as interested in getting drunk as talking about demographics (see Chapter 3).

Chapter one immediately descends into utter bats**t insane conspiracy-mongering crankery, where Shukman enters the setup of Act I even with a reference to the Bard:

The Basketweavers are advertised on the home page of a disgraced academic called Neema Parvini. A former literature lecturer at the University of Surrey, Parvini once wrote books about Shakespeare and the occasional comment article. But he led a double life, producing a far-right internet show under his pseudonym, Academic Agent.

Parvini is a demonstrably-brilliant academic who graduated from Oxford as a Shakespeare scholar, and is a published author of multiple works which are philosophically authoritative. 116,000 people subscribe to his YouTube channel, where his cigar-smoking reflections are far from a "double life."

Who is this written for? Teenage girls?

It drones on, and on, and on, forever. It's the kind of airport fiction which excites the imagination of adoring Tumblr users alone with a small dog and microwave meal on a Tuesday night after leaving work at their administrative job for Channel 4. It is the confession of a larper, – a Walter Mitty – who mocks the real risks the men and women of our security services take for our country's safety.

Frankly, it's just sad. All of it. Outside of Hollywood, we all knew this kid at school.

Simon Cottee notes this for Unherd, providing a review which is so polite in its derision it deserves a Housewives-of-Britain award:

If Shukman has a bad conscience, it’s not chiefly because he’s deceived so many people in the process of researching his book — he actually justifies deception as a necessary if regrettable tactic to get close to the far-Right, which is suspicious of outsiders, and to expose all its unpleasantness. Rather, it is because he felt morally tainted — “complicit”, as he puts it — by participating in their activism while undercover with them. On several occasions, he uses the word “grubby” to describe how this made him feel.

It seems unlikely Harry, with his teenage-diary writing, put two and two together.

This is a common theme among public comments made by Hope Not Hate staff: evil, criminality, and abuse are all justifiable if the means serve the ends.

Fortunately, we have laws in England, and this sentiment does not form a part of them. What these budding amateur sleuths appear to have done – as counter-terrorism rightly rebuked them for previously – is not uphold the law, but willingly break it in service of a quasi-religious cause.

English prisons are full of people with this mentality, or what we call the "hatchling" rationale of being "born yesterday." Whatever they did was entirely justified based on the beliefs or circumstances of the time to serve their mission; they were innocent for a transcendental reason escaping human and legal understanding. It is the casus belli of the Jihadi.

A Dirty Passport And Dirty People

The Metropolitan Police got into a lot of trouble in 2015. After the "appalling practices" discovered during the Ellison Review, Theresa May launched the Undercover Policing Inquiry to examine the deployment of 140 undercover police officers to spy on over 1,000 political groups over more than 40 years. The results weren't good: police officers sleeping with targets and using the birth certificates of dead children to establish false identities.

As a result, undercover operations have become a lot harder, and it's a much more tempting option to "outsource" where possible.

Opinion was genuinely divided among Restorationist writers (several of whom are ex-intelligence officers, out of ~25 or so people) as to whether Shukman's dirty passport was issued by some shadowy state connection. Not only for the haplessness of the "operation"; Hope Not Hate have a contentious relationship with counter-terrorism. When they're not insulting them through Guardian articles, they're being threatened with arrest for breaking terrorism laws. Our police are flawed, but as Englishmen, it is right they are given the benefit of the doubt.

Shukman already explained the details in his screenplay, and had been caught using the fake document as "Chris" at a private event as well as towards other groups. Connor Tomlinson's excellent reporting paints a complex picture:

According to the fake CV provided by Shukman to the source which gave me the passport photo, his alias, “Christopher Morton”, graduated from the University of Manchester in 2013. However, the University of Manchester publish its graduations annually, and a Ctrl + F search brings up neither Morton nor Shukman’s names.

Shukman scrubbed his online presence shortly before posing as Morton. He had an Instagram account active as recent as June 2023, with the username @shukkers12 – https://www.instagram.com/shukkers12 – which has since been removed. A Facebook account, hshukman, and a Twitter/X account, @hshukman, has also been removed. (More on that later.)

But the remnants of his public profile show that Shukman graduated with an undergraduate degree from the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society from King’s College, London.

False documents are a binary proposition: they are either genuine, or they are not. Which leaves a simple deductive scenario:

1. The document was produced via forgery and/or obtained on the black market, or
2. The document was authentically issued by HM Passport Office, through:
   1. Supplying false information to HMPO.
   2. An official authorisation to HMPO to produce it.

Professor Dutton (now, to be affectionately called, The Lord Dutton of Ploughley) already had an Occam's Razor-style simplistic theory, which we called the Dutton Hypothesis.

The Restorationist was given temporary private access to the document a week after we first published the article by a confidential source, for the purposes of ascertaining its legitimacy and eliminating option #1. Only a small group were permitted to view it, and we have destroyed any copies which were in our possession.

Technical Analysis Of The Passport

As official recognition documents issued by a government, passports aren't necessarily secure. Only a limited number of countries share databases with one another, meaning they lack the means to authenticate the identity of the holder. If you turn up at an airport in the third world, it's quite simple to pass through the immigration line with a passport containing the correct structural details even if the information itself is false.

How sophisticated is the document?

Without physically handling an official passport, it's difficult to verify its authenticity exactly. The ultra-violet security watermarks on British passports are quite beautiful. However, they are well known and easily checked by private companies for a fee. The UK government offers an online service to check authenticity.

The document states it was issued by HMPO in February 2023 with a standard ten-year expiry.

The font, spacing, holograms, microprinting, ghost image, and kinegram (Diffractive optically variable image device, or DOVID) features appear consistent with genuine UK biometric passports.

Passport numbers are not just randomised digits. Modern machine-readable biometric documents embed mathematical calculations into their numbering as part of the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) 9303 standard. The "Morton" document has a standard machine-readable zone (MRZ) which appears genuine (partially redacted here):

P<GBRMORTON<<CHRISTOPHER<CHARLES<<<<<<<<
1379***547GBR**04203***02082<<<<<<<<<<<<<<00

MRZs on passports use modulus-10 (Luhn-like) checksums across selected fields. Each character is converted to a number, multiplied by a repeating weight sequence of [7, 3, 1], summed, and the last digit of the total is the checksum digit. For the false Shukman passport, the calculations are:

• Passport Number 13797****, length: 9, check digit: 7
• Date of Birth **0420 , length: 6. check digit: 3
• Expiry Date 3302**, length:6, check digit: 2
• Final (Composite) Field Whole line 30+ 0

In the following calculations, D = digit; V = value; W = weight; P = product.

Passport number weights: 7, 3, 1, 7, 3, 1, 7, 3, 1

D V W P
1 1 7 7
3 3 3 9
7 7 1 7
9 9 7 63
7 7 3 21
6 6 1 6
5 5 7 35
5 5 3 15
4 4 1 4
Total 167

167 mod 10 = 7. The check passes.

This pattern repeats with the date of birth and expiry date contained in the MRZ. To calculate the final check digit we can use the following formula:

(Passport Number + Check digit) + (DOB + Check digit) + (Expiry Date + Check digit)

The result is 0 at position 43. The full check passes ICAO compliance.

The valid checksums prove whoever created this knew the ICAO standards perfectly and had the capability to generate mathematically correct check digits. The combination of perfect technical execution with obviously false personal details is the hallmark of professional, authorised document creation rather than criminal counterfeiting.

Do either of these people exist?

Firstly, the name. We were curious as to whether Swedish hunk Hermansson, who appears to either have had tradecraft training or is extensively read in the techniques, went down the "dead baby" route like the Met. Or whether Shukman was an alias.

I inverted my biography to create an altered version of myself. My parents and siblings now went by their middle names, for instance.

Shukman gave the same phone number to different people, and also used the surname "Schultz." The number did not show up on common telecoms databases, meaning it was almost certainly a burner.

We sent an intrepid researcher to the archives at Kew, to look for birth and death records of both. Our man wasn't able to locate either.

If you don't fancy paying or waiting for copies of records from the General Register, the Mormon church has conveniently sucked up all of our country's genealogy until 2008. Professor Dutton had already looked up both Shukman and "Morton" using FamilySearch. These are public domain and free to anyone with an unpaid account.

Christopher Morton does not exist, nor does it appear to be a registered death in the same period (for a dead baby cert around the same age as Shukman, 34). Harold David Shukman is publicly listed with a birth date of May 1992, the same year as the false passport, but a different month. Without a potential death to steal an identity from, we could safely rule the possibility out.

The nearest match is a Christopher Charles Morton born in 1991 in Swindon (maiden name: Pyke). Probably a fine Englishman who has no idea he was caught up in any of it.

Chris has Hitler's birthday

Our friends at a well-known leftist publication immediately noticed something we hadn't: "Chris" has a birthday a month before Shukman, which is... the same as Hitler. Hitler was born on April 20 1889, the same day as the fake identity. The date of birth for "Chris" is given as April 20, 1992. This information is obviously false and does not correspond to that of a real person, as Shukman has already stated.

It may be possible the chaps at "anti-fascist" HQ do, in fact, have a sense of humour. All may not be lost. They are English, after all.

Now here imparts a very worrying question: how did our caped heroes change the birth date for "Chris" back a month from Shukman's (May) to Morton's (April), of the same year? It will all depend on whether Shukman had a previous passport with his real date of birth.

British birth certificates also have security features:

• In 1993, the General Register Office (GRO) began issuing certified copies on specially printed watermarked paper. This included an embedded “GRO” watermark and the use of colour backgrounds to deter copying.
• During the 2000s, modern anti-copy features included enhanced printing techniques, such as microtext lines, anti-copy backgrounds, and ink types which distort when scanned or photocopied, Newer long-form certificates began using more tamper-resistant paper and higher-quality printing.
• In the 2010s, with the introduction of online ordering and tracking numbers via the GRO website, certificates now come with printed batch/order numbers for validation, consistent use of unique reference numbers and anti-copy backgrounds.

If Shukman had had a previous passport, it would have required an elaborate story about why the date was wrong. The alternative is more worrying: Shukman and/or his handler could have doctored a copy of his real birth certificate as supporting documentation for his application to HMPO.

A 1992 UK birth certificate would be relatively easy to falsify or doctor by today’s standards because a) certificates were typed or printed on plain or lightly patterned paper; there were no watermarks, microtext, serial tracking, or anti-copy inks; signatures were often handwritten and could be scanned or replicated, and many certificates were photocopy-based duplicates, making visual consistency harder to verify.

Where is Ploughley?

A mystery discovered during the analysis was serious enough to prompt The Restorationist to retract a portion of our original article. The "place of birth" field on a passport does not reflect where a person was physically born, but where the office at which the birth was later registered (Sub District, Registration District, Lieutenancy Area or county). You can be born in Canterbury, but your birth might be registered at Brighton.

The place of birth for "Morton", Ploughley, doesn't exist as a town or a registration district office. It is neither a sub district office, reg district, or lieutenancy area. It does not appear on Ordnance Survey, Google Maps, or Nominatim.

Well, it did exist, until 1974. At the time of Shukman's birth, it was no longer a valid registry area. Which is odd, as it appears on his birth record, and that of his parents' wedding registration.

The nearest match is Ploughley Hundred, and the nearest birth registry office is Bicester Registration Office, Franklins House, Wesley Lane, Bicester.

We were concerned, if the passport had been legitimately issued, the inclusion of this detail in a false document was a deliberate, active steganographic marker in use by the security services as life-or-death protection for officers in the line of their vital duties. Given the inclusion of the location on the Utah record, and the assurance of sources at different levels, we eventually excluded this possibility.

The mystery remains open, but the simplest explanation is it was a simple oversight of a common name in use for an old area.

The Dutton deed poll hypothesis

English common law is quite accommodating to those who wish to change any part of their name they wish to go by, or the entirety of it. The government's official guidance is simple, and provides two methods:

1. Official notice as an enrolled deed poll at the Royal Courts of Justice, which must be published in the Gazette.
2. A private deed poll document or statutory declaration which must be witnessed and counter-signed by two people who vouch for you. It may remain entirely private. Many companies provide this service, for example, the UK Deed Poll Office or UK Deed Poll Service.

Less than one per cent of people use the official enrollment process. We could not find any records of a name change for "Shukman" or "Morton" in the Gazette.

This leaves one possibility: the use of a private deed poll document. To obtain a new passport from HM Passport Office after changing your name, you must send:

• Your current passport
• The original deed poll
• One proof-of-use document issued in the last 3 months that already displays your new name, from one of the following:
  • Government or municipal document (e.g., council tax letter)
  • Payslip or employer letter
  • Tax/Benefits correspondence (HMRC letter)
  • Driving licence, bank statement (for UK applications), pension or ID cards
  • Educational or medical records
  • Utility bill, voting card, or similar official documentation

However, this leaves the thorny subject of the date of birth. You can't simply change a name and a date of birth on a passport by providing a deed poll document and a payslip. So Shukman may have had "parallel" identities: his real one, and his fraudulent one; two birth certificates and two passports.

Compounding Fraud With Fraud

A passport document is extremely useful. It allows you to verify yourself in order to obtain additional documents, for example, a driving licence. It allows you to open a bank account which comes with credit cards which help build a cover legend. It's a little embarrassing if 00-Hitler is caught at the bar paying for drinks with a different name on his debit card to what is on his entry document.

Shukman says he met his new handsome friends in "late 2022", and the passport was issued in February 2023. His "year" of so-called "undercover" work was presumably from that month onwards, into 2024.

An awkward question arises: how did he make a living in 2023, and what was reported to HMRC? It's unlikely this expensive year of traveling for a humble blogger was self-funded, or he avoided PAYE and NI, assuming he had payslips during this period. Were they paid to Shukman, or "Morton"? Was he paid or stipended by Hope Not Hate, using proceeds of charitable donations funnelled to the sole limited company beneficiary?

If he used the false passport to open a bank account, that's fraud. If he used it to obtain any other benefits, that's fraud. Using a fraudulent passport to fraudulently obtain documents, financial compensation, or institutional access is compounded criminality and the basic components of identity theft.

Switcheroos & Double Applications

Obtaining a false passport is easier than one might expect. However, switching your identity back again a year later is much harder. This brings us to the key question: was it two identities with their own separate identity documents, or did he switch his own?

1. Single identity: if he changed his name, he also changed his date of birth. An existing passport would raise questions from HMPO. He would have had to change his accounts and HMRC information, then switch it all back a year later. HMPO would definitely ask questions - we hope. Perhaps not.
2. Parallel identities: he would have created "Morton" out of thin air with fraudulent supporting documentation, probably by ordering and doctoring his own birth certificate. It would achieve financial separation for ordinary life without the need for the complication of payslips. "Morton" could disappear into the ether by never being seen again.

The Dutton Hypothesis weakens here.

Switching one's entire life and identity from Shukman, to "Morton," then back again, in less than two years, seems too complex for these people and is fraught with possible tripwires. The easiest and comfiest route is arguably a simple imaginary friend.

AI Analysis: Because We Love AI

We're obviously biased, so we ran the documented evidence through a deadhead cluster of private LLM instances in the Restorationist compute with "mixture of experts" reasoning capabilities. 22 analyses were run, using image reading on the original passport document itself.

Model A: Falsified Birth Certificate Application

Based on technical analysis and operational constraints, Shukman most likely created a parallel fraudulent identity through document falsification rather than legitimate name change procedures.

Model B: Parallel Identity via Forgery

The balance of probability strongly supports the theory that the passport in question was genuinely issued by HMPO on the basis of fraudulent documentation. The sophistication of theDraft: The passport attributed ICAO-compliant MRZ and document features is far beyond typical counterfeiting. Given the lack of any known legitimate name change, the improbable DOB, and the extinct birthplace, the only viable explanation is that Harry Shukman or collaborators fabricated a secondary identity through a doctored birth certificate and misused a private deed poll to deceive HMPO.

Model C: Parallel Identity via Forgery

He digitally altered the certificate: changed name to Christopher Charles Morton, DOB to 20 April 1992 (same as Hitler’s birthday), and place of birth to Ploughley (a defunct district abolished in 1974).

NB: this model produced a much weaker analysis. Included here for comprehensiveness.

Model D: Doctored Birth Certificate and Fraudulent Application

Based on the provided analysis and passport details, Shukman most likely obtained the "Christopher Morton" passport through a fraudulent application to HM Passport Office (HMPO) using doctored supporting documentation, rather than a legitimate name change or state-authorized process.

Compound LLM round robin: high-effort, ideologically motivated identity fraud.

OPINION: this was almost certainly a real UK passport, issued through deception, not a forgery. This was not state-sanctioned tradecraft. It wasn’t random criminal forgery either. It was a high-effort, ideologically motivated identity fraud — and it worked.

NB: this configuration was given the same params and instructions, and wasn't instructed to be pissed off. But it was, for some reason.

What The Evidence Suggests

Although this speculation is founded on solid technical ground, it is merely speculation on a matter of public interest which is already firmly in the public domain. It is a matter for HM Passport Office and the British Police to investigate and answer the public definitively.

However, using what we have, we can conjecture the following on the balance of probabilities:

1. The technical analysis strongly indicates the document was authentically issued by HMPO, or the work of an exceptionally sophisticated forger able to simulate ICAO compliance passable at foreign ports of entry.
2. It is highly unlikely HM Government – whether any of regional counter-terrorism units or security services – would take the issuance of false passports to non-officers under CHIS on a frivolous or speculative basis. Particularly considering the hapless and woeful training demonstrated by Shukman.
3. It is most likely HMPO were given false information by the applicant.
4. If HMPO were supplied with false information to obtain an official document, it seems most likely Shukman either:
   1. issued himself a private deed poll with the support of two witnesses with knowledge of his intent to deceive, and found a rationale for simultaneously changing the DOB, or
   2. doctored a copy of a birth certificate to display the chosen name and date of birth, and used it as the primary supporting documentation on a passport application for a fictitious person.
5. It is unlikely this operation would have proceeded without Lowles' knowledge, and given Shukman describes Hermansson as his "handler." these two are the nearest suspects to the chain of evidence.

These determinations are substantially true, derived of honest opinion, and firmly in the public interest - being under the First Amendment of the United States constitution outside the jurisdiction of the UK. This passport has been circulated in press articles, video stills, and national broadcast content. In particular:

• The facial image matches blogger Harry Shukman;
• It was used to gain access to real-world premises under false pretences;
• It formed part of a state-funded documentary broadcast.

UK police forces are not covered by the ISA 1994 (CT units do not have access to s.7 ISA powers) but are subject to the OSA 1989. If an officer of SO15 or National CT HQ requested the creation of a false passport for use in an undercover operation, the CHIS Criminal Conduct Authorisation would likely be signed by a Superintendent, reviewed by a Commander or Deputy Assistant Commissioner (national) under the conditions "proportionate, necessary."

If a false document was used to travel abroad, the circumstances become even more serious. That is the domain of the Secret Intelligence Service (aka the "executive branch" of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office), who do not take these matters lightly when sources, methods, and personnel could be jeopardised.

Two prominent Freedom of Information Act 2000 requests have been sent to determine additional facts about the circumstances of this document previously:

In FOI response 2024/08841, the Home Office:

• Did not deny the document was real or issued;
• Cited the Identity Documents Act 2010 without confirming a breach;
• Issued a "neither confirm nor deny" (NCND) refusal under Section 31 FOIA (law enforcement).

In FOI response 2025/08350, the Home Office declined to answer whether it could confirm the validity of a UK passport number, citing Section 40(2) (third-party data), even when the question was framed as a procedural binary (valid/invalid) with no private data attached.

If this document is genuine, it implies UK government authorship or collaboration. If it is forged, it undermines confidence in UK identity issuance and is a serious criminal offence. In either case, transparency is essential for international trust and legal accountability.

If Hope not Hate organisational resources were used to facilitate this, and if charitable donations funded it, we're looking at potential charity fraud alongside identity fraud.

It is for the Crown Prosecution Service to determine, under their lawful authority, whether the following laws have been broken:

• Making a false representation (e.g., submitting false deed poll, supporting documents, or statements) with intent to make a gain or cause a loss under the Fraud Act 2006, Section 2.
• Making a false declaration under the Perjury Act 1911 (if declared before a solicitor/commissioner for oaths), or Statutory Declarations Act 1835, Section 5.
• Conspiracy to defraud the Crown under the Fraud Act 2006.
• Aiding/abetting fraud or deception as witnesses or co-conspirators under the Criminal Law Act 1977 or Accessories and Abettors Act 1861.
• Possessing or using an identity document that is false, improperly obtained, or belongs to someone else, with intent to deceive under the Identity Documents Act 2010, Section 4.
• Gaining entry to a private event through deception via false representation under the Fraud Act 2006.
• If done on TV or in public view, it may show premeditation or intent to mislead the public.

These are exceptionally serious offences, with several of them carry up to ten years imprisonment as their maximum sentence. This is not a sinister conspiracy with counter-terror command: it is working to undermine it. If there genuinely are dangerous individuals in these organisations, Shukman's bumbling incompetence could have forced them to go to ground and made it harder for our law enforcement services to catch them.

If Shukman switched it back from Morton to his real name afterwards during 2024, it would indicate HM Passport Office have two sets of application paperwork which are fraudulent.

It is crucial to understand these individuals are innocent until proven guilty under English law, even if subsequently charged. It is also crucial to understand the majority of people working in government departments are ordinary Englishmen with integrity who abide by rules of propriety.

But most of all, it is crucial to understand the government response to FOIA requests is not necessarily sinister or evidence of complicity. If HM Passport Office issued a document in good faith via a process which followed the law, they have acted responsibly by refusing to release information under the grounds given in their responses. As far as they may be aware, the personage provided in the application is, for all intents and purposes, bonafide.

We must presume, therefore, this was a legitimate government document issued in good faith by HM Passport Office; and rather than it being a sinister process of cover-up, they are still acting responsibly in good faith; and should be given the appropriate latitude to determine if the Crown has been deceived.

Screams From The Void

Several days after we published, multiple cybersec tripwires put in place by the hypercaffeinated tech volunteers at The Restorationist began blinking red. On July 13th, Reiners amusingly mocked a Hope Not Hate "researcher" following him on X, soon to be followed by "veteran antifascist" Joe Mulhall being blocked from following this author's account.

Mulhall's reputation as a cowardly thug is well-deserved. Little needs to be said.

But little Gregory? We took a look.

Gregory Davis, the "senior researcher" – (it's a bit like a "senior conductor" on a train; is there ever a "junior" kind?) – is a Green Party whackjob who retweets messages from proscribed groups attacking British military installations, promotes the intimidation of Jewish children by pro-Houthi militants outside community centres, and praises violence against Elon Musk. His career appears to have begun by convincing female journalists at Metro to reprint lunatic Covid conspiracy theories.

Gregory's quite haughty and self-important. His MO is clear: Google searching, reverse image searching, and obsessive cyberstalking. We knew what was coming next: Greg was on a fishing expedition to discredit the authors of the article in lieu of being able to contest the facts.

As anyone in media will recognise, this message is veiled to indenture credibility with a pretence of journalism: asking for a response by a deadline is a common format journalists use. It also has two other names: Section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 and Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1998.

We reached out to the account in question, the owner of which is based in the UK. He agreed, with understandable reticence, to appear on an audio call simultaneously with Reiners to definitively show these were two separate people. We provided Hope Not Hate with full means to verify their claim, and offered them the ability to conduct any test they required – in real-time – so they had the ability to avoid a libel action.

Then came the anon-bots.

In true Scientology style, unverified antisemitic Twitter accounts began commenting abuse on Restorationist posts. With a common theme: everyone knows your secret identity, Michael.

What are you going to do about it you jew loving fa66ot?

Everyone knows you run like 500 accounts, Michael. You are using antisemitism in the same way BLM use racism.

Anyway, why dont you address the point? Do you not find it strange how a nationalist wishes he was jewish and you have him on your show? Youre the most obvious op,

Five days later, Reiners states that a dossier, containing quotes from his own X account, and various reputable publications, were put to him in an accusatory manner. The framing, and writing style, had a familiar feel.

We were curious. So we ran Gregory's previous (grammatically horrific) writing for Hope Not Hate, which features his obsessive quoting, against the dossier through three different AI model analyses.

In this previous case, Davis and/or persons unknown used a cutout after zooming in to social media images to stalk "Raw Egg Nationalist" at a farm shop: a man who has never been accused of any form of criminal offence, nor has any reason to be a matter of public interest.

The result? In all three cases, a probability of 90% or higher that the author was the same. It's impossible to know for certain, but given the timing and the level of digging, it's highly unlikely it was an internal detractor suddenly deciding to pick a legal fight .

That would suggest a "course of conduct," which is an offence under Section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

In Lieu Of An Official Government Response

This is not the work of sinister dark forces. It is the tomfoolery of wannabes. It's telling in the early pages of Shukman's book – which is largely a diary of him repeating how endless fragile and frightened he is day-to-day – he wanted to be a professional.

Patrik and I thought that Chris should be dependable, affable and, above all, normal. Right- wing extremists tend to think that infiltrators will be easy to spot: slippery and sneaky, asking cackhandedly obvious questions like ‘What does everyone think about the Jews?’ or ‘Committed any good hate crimes recently?’ Among the far right, this is known as fed-posting, which is when heavy- handed police investigators appear in online groups and say especially racist things in order to prompt admissions of illegal activity.

Reality is often stupider than fiction. Professor Dutton's recollection varies considerably compared to this self-confessed "liar" and "cheater," who is closer to Austin Powers than Bond:

When I first met him, the first thing he said to me, he said, "Can I have a selfie?" And I said, "All right." And then he said, "How many people do you think do I think were killed in the Holocaust?" That seems like a strange line of questioning for someone you just met and I thought to myself, you are either an undercover spy or you're a bit mental and we and we get mentals, you know, in in groups like this. So my first conclusion was you're just a bit mental.

The Restorationist has submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act to the following organisations, who have forty days to provide any or all documentation related to the matter:

• National Archives
• HM Home Office
• HM Passport Office
• Metropolitan Police
• Charities Commission
• Electoral Commission
• Channel 4 Broadcasting Corp.

We'd like to praise Connor "Fire Whip" Tomlinson for his exceptional reporting on this story, because it's a true rabbit hole which would make a real comedy: but not the kind Shukman was planning.

We're fervent about this: we don't like these people. They're bullies. They bully women; they don't care about the effects on children; they attack people they think can't or won't fight back.

We do not expect transparency, sadly. However, we will assume good faith and publish them in full, as a matter of public interest. The veritable Reiners, presumably, – unlike this author, who regularly bathes in the joys of the First Amendment writing about manufacturing nuclear weapons, novel ways to create synthetic drugs, Stephen Fry's worrying early plays, and 1640s-esque revolutionary fervour – will have to give up his secret anime identity to nurture his new clandestine weekend persona as unsolicited curator pro tempore of Lincoln Cathedral.