Inside the venue, British Prime MinisterRishi Sunakwas giving a speech to the Welsh branch of the Conservatives.
Wyn Jones happily agreed.
After their conversation, Sunak posed for photos with a ruddy, grinning Wyn Jones.
Farmers holding banners and placards and driving tractors gather at Parliament Square during a demonstration in MarchRasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu/Getty Images
But in posing for photos, Sunak had endorsed a group that pushes conspiracy theories.
An online organizing document claimed that Unelected globalists were killing farmers and would force the population to eat bugs.
No Farmers No Food was founded by a PR consultant called James Melville.
Prime Minister Sunaks appearance with No Farmers No Food follows a U-turn last year on key climate commitments.
We are sleepwalking into food shortages, a lot quicker than people understand, he says.
Since then hes built an impressive online platform claiming to be the worlds most-followed farmer.
Melville wasnt always so focused on climate action and farmers.
More recently, Together Declaration launched a No To Net Zero campaign.
This pivot towards climate posts mirrors Melvilles own.
They are in turn influencing political parties and shaping discussion on climate policy.
The strategy is acting like working.
As climate has become a more salient topic, influencers began to experiment with climate themes, she says.
And this is now happening all over Europe.
Because its also a place of re-education.
IKEA wants to make us vegans!
he concludes, waving his right fist theatrically.
The man is Boris Reitschuster, one ofGermanys prominent alternative journalists.
Its not up to a furniture store to explain what people have to eat, he says.
Inanother video, he compares Germanys supposed green future to North Korea and the stone age.
Are the climate police now coming?
Reitschusters online success largely goes back to the Covid-19 pandemic, when his profile shot up quickly.
Like other conspiratorial influencers in Germany, Reitschuster used to be a respected journalist for traditional media.
After 16 years as anaward-winningRussia correspondent at German newsweeklyFocus, Reitschuster left in 2015, citing different opinions.
In 2019, he began regularly posting on his website reitschuster.de.
But it was the pandemic that catapulted him into the premier league of Germanys conspiratorial world.
Newsguard noted that it did not fulfill basic requirements for credibility and transparency.
Being critical of Vladimir Putin and his war proved unpopular among Germanys Covid-skeptics and conspiratorial community.
Tens of thousands of people left his Telegram channel in the wake of the invasion.
Since then, he changed tacks.
Reitschusters turnaround is far from an isolated one.
The farmers protests provided a strong boost to this scene, Holnburger says.
On its website, you might buy a t-shirt emblazoned with I love CO2 for about $30.
Other shirts have slogans like Germany for the Germans and White Lives Matter.
(He was released after six months of pre-trial detention and acquitted in May 2008.)
Magnet has said that Covid-19 restrictions mobilized him to launch AUF1 in 2021.
Like Reitschusters followers, AUF1s audience appears to have warmed to climate-skeptic content.
Against all odds, his platform was the sixth most voted force with almost 5 percent of the vote.
Alvise can be classified as a disinformation entrepreneur, says Ana Romero, a researcher atEU Disinfo Lab.
Even by the standards of the far-right, Alvise stands out for his reliance on lies about his opponents.
He also faces several additional ongoing accusations of defamation against other public figures.
Alvises claims tap into widely held feelings even if they make little or no sense.
He claims to live off his millions of followers.
In reality, he lives off the money and resources provided by a minority of them.
He refused to provide any further details of campaign financing.
The jump from anti-immigrant fearmongering to hoaxes around climate change is also happening in France.
A similar trend is playing out in the UK ahead of its own general election on July 4.
