Yeadon is one of many medics to have ridden the pandemic’s online counterculture wave to leverage himself to martyr status. Following his claims in 2020 that the Covid jab caused infertility, researchers at King’s College London found that seven per cent of UK adults, or 3.8 million people, believed the same. His influence has been pernicious and widespread, attracting fans across the country for his views on vaccines even though he had never worked with them by the time he left Pfizer in 2011.

However, a spokesperson for Liberty Places says Yeadon provided early seed funding but now has ‘no executive function or financial interest in Liberty Places Corporation or any of its subsidiaries’. The spokesperson declined to specify the nature of Yeadon’s current role or to discuss Bernard’s involvement, saying only: ‘Liberty Places is a new kind of private sector organisation… none of us now involved seek to take individual credit for our brand, identity, or perceived success.’

The group is less shy about its architect Sean Clifton, who is certified in the Passivhaus method of building low-energy sustainable homes. It is planning a ‘health village’, taking an ‘integrative approach’ using ‘traditional and alternative medicine’ alongside ‘allopathic’ drugs (a word used by alternative medicine advocates to refer to mainstream healthcare). It also intends to use blockchains, the technology behind cryptocurrency, to create a ‘fair’ and ‘transparent’ new digital economy.

The spokesperson insists that Liberty Places is not an anti-vaccine community, describing Covid immunisation as only one catalyst for a comprehensive sense of disenchantment. They say the West’s response to Covid-19 is only one step in an ongoing march towards totalitarian social control, and claim vaccinated people will be welcome in their community too.

Indeed, the group’s posts on Telegram evoke a worldview that goes deeper than Covid. It argues that digital payments and vaccine passports are the beginnings of a Western ‘social credit system’, referring to China’s ambitious plan to give all its citizens and businesses a unified ‘trustworthiness’ rating based on a wide range of behaviour from cheating in online video games to failing to attend restaurant bookings to pet ownership and social media posts. Liberty Places is intended to ‘prepare for this inevitability’.

The West as an ‘occupied territory’

In other posts, the group describes Europe as ‘occupied territory’ and the West as an ‘open prison’, which it calls ‘a structural phenomenon that’s grown up over the decades’. It wants to lead ‘a revolution of thought and mind’, beginning civilisation again in the birthplace of humanity. In March it posted a graphic of frequencies measured in hertz, assigning them various emotional states such as ‘peace’, ‘anger’, and ‘enlightenment’. ‘This is not the first time the planet’s frequency has changed and human cells [been] interfered with due to meddling technology,’ it said. ‘We as individuals… [can] take responsibility to move ourselves up that vibration scale.’

The vision appeals to Liberty Places’ followers, though many have doubts or questions. ‘The biggest fear is lack of means to live,’ says one. ‘Zanzibar sounds lovely, but if there is nothing to do there to earn there is no point moving.’ Some are concerned that Tanzania may not be safe from 5G mobile internet or digital ATMs. Yet others ask hopefully about WiFi, taxes, visas, and good places for a scouting holiday. ‘Who wouldn’t want to be part of this super-smart way of life, shared with kindred spirits, surrounded by the best of mother nature and breathtaking beauty?’ asked one. Another lamented: ‘It’s raining here! Your photo is helping me know what I have to look forward to.’

Behind it all is a palpable longing for safety and community, reminiscent of the counterculture boom of the ’60s and ’70s. Back then, those alienated from mainstream society by the collapse of organised religion or the violence in Vietnam and America’s segregated South turned to new mystical ideas, flocking to ‘intentional communities’ founded around unconventional new visions. Some collapsed, some survived, others evolved into cults like Heaven’s Gate; these days, many intentional communities have turned to Airbnb to attract new guests. Is something similar happening now? And if so, can the ‘awakened’ really escape the world order they have come to despise?

The perfect breeding ground 

The pandemic has set the scene for conspiracies to flourish: last year, a study by French research centre Cevipof found that 31 per cent of UK respondents believed health ministries were in cahoots with pharmaceutical firms to hide jab risks, while 41 per cent agreed Covid was an opportunity for the Government to ‘control and monitor’ citizens. Research has also shown significant cross-pollination with other conspiracy theories – including QAnon, the online phenomenon that prompted the storming of the US Capitol last year – giving rise to a ‘cultic milieu’, where those with differing fringe beliefs come together in their rejection of the dominant culture. That process may have been accelerated by social networks’ algorithms, which sometimes recommend new conspiracy groups to people who have already shown an interest in others.

Yet Arthur Goldwag, author of the book Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies, says that the organisations behind the Tanzanian and Paraguayan islands are ‘more opportunistic’ than those of decades past, with the groups instead focused on ‘trying to make a little money out of people’s fear, ignorance, and alienation’.

This has been easily done during the pandemic thanks to societal instability and our reliance on social media – of particular concern for parents, whose teenagers have spent more time online than in the classroom since Covid hit. Conspiracy groups and cults operate by seeking out ‘vulnerable people’, Goldwag explains, offering them ‘certainty and clarity’. For today’s young people, that promise is compelling, because you ‘would naturally be very worried about your future. There’s a lot of vulnerability, and social media is a wonderful tool to get inside people’s heads.’

Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the London-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, accuses big tech platforms of ‘exacerbating the crisis’. He says: ‘Social media sites are based on algorithms that promote contentious, highly engaging content over fact. Too often, people searching for answers have instead been directed straight towards conspiracy theorists and fearmongers.’ Ian Haworth of the Cult Information Centre (CIC) agrees, saying: ‘[Conspiracists are] using the internet very effectively, unfortunately… people take more trouble buying a car than they do when getting involved with a group that could destroy their lives.’

Goldwag points out a long tradition of opposition to major vaccines, such as polio more than six decades ago. Like the Covid jab, the polio vaccine ‘changed the world, and met with a lot of resistance – with backlash mainly from the far Right, religious groups, and those concerned with “bodily integrity”’. In the wake of mandated health orders then as now, freedom crusaders are born, intent to ‘create utopian communities based on a single idea’. Goldwag warns that we should be ‘very suspicious’ of these new founders’ motivations – not least because the near-universal spread of Covid-19 makes the potential scale of disinformation about it ‘overwhelming’.

History, Goldwag says, shows that conspiracy groups centred around one issue ‘never last’. But he warns that if their rejections of the likes of 5G and conventional health treatment grow larger, and the ‘cultic milieu’ takes hold, the combined effect could be powerful.

For the ‘awakened’, having a like-minded community in which to immerse themselves makes them feel stronger and safer. ‘I don’t know if [Covid] is a virus, but if it is a disease… for most people it is not deadly,’ says the El Paraíso Verde naturopath Uwe Cramer. Back in Germany, his views meant ‘there is no place for us’. Ten and a half thousand miles away, he finally feels at home.

Additional reporting by Santi Carneri and Will Brown