A troll who abused anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller has said he acted because ‘single white fathers’ get no support as he bonded with the businesswoman over experiencing homelessness.
Alan, who works as a concierge, said after Brexit he felt ‘there was no point in sitting back and being passive’ and started leaving hateful, racist and threatening messages for politicians online.
The single father met with Gina in a clip filmed by the BBC before the coronavirus pandemic, with the duo bonding after they both revealed that at one stage they had been forced to live in their car.
Gina admitted she felt awful about the experience: ‘I want to say sorry to you because you felt so angry. I just feel it’s awful there’s hundreds of thousands of people who feel like you.’
Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller confronted a troll who had attacked her online after the duo met for an interview before the coronavirus pandemic
Alan started the hobby of leaving harmful comments online for politicians after the Brexit referendum, including Gina Miller.
Before meeting Gina, he explained: ‘lt’s literally because of Brexit. I figure there was no point in sitting back being passive.’
A combination of his past, feeling very upset and invested, as well as everything he’s was seeing on social media got him increasingly fired up.
He said: ‘People who are disenfranchised are people like myself, white single fathers. If you want disenfranchised in the world…I get nothing from nobody.
Gina met with single father Alan, who starting trolling and sending politicians abusive messages online after the Brexit vote
‘Everybody else can get seemingly what they like. So it got to the point where I thought I’m going to stand up and say something.’
Meanwhile Gina explained how attacks online had now escalated to verbal attacks in real life and said she now has secruity for her and her family 24 hours a day.
She said: ‘In the beginning I thought it was just words, just on social media. But I was out with my daughter recently, standing outside on a road to cross to my car.
‘And this car stopped, window rolled down, shouting “You know black ****, you should be hung, traitor. You know, dying is too good for you.”‘
Gina became a household name when she initiated a legal fight to prevent the government from suspending parliament before the Brexit deadline
The duo met in an open public place to discuss the experience, with Alan explaining he wanted to make amends for the hurt he had caused.
He said: ‘I didn’t want to leave a bit of hate around in the world. And if I could do anything to clear that up, if I could talk to anybody to clear that up.’
Gina replied: ‘What I find really frustrating is that people think they know me because of whats in the media. I often read it and think, who is this woman?’
The pair got to talking and realised they had much more in common than they thought they would, including sons of a similar age.
Before meeting Gina, Alan admitted he felt ‘disenfranchised’ and said he has received little help as a single father while others appeared to ‘get everything’
After they met, the pair bonded over the challenges in their life, realising they both had been forced to sleep in their car at different stages
Alan explained: ‘I’m a single father…since he was four.’
Meanwhile Gina said: ‘The thing is, I’ve had a very varied life. I’m a pretty strong person. I lived in a car for three weeks or so.’
And Alan said he could empathise with Gina, saying: ‘Sleeping in a car, I did that for two years, because they couldn’t house me. So I know exactly how it feels to be sleeping in the front of a car. I get that.’
Gina explained that she has received ‘a lot of anger’ and said racist abuse has increased since Brexit
Meanwhile Alan said he felt ‘terrible’ about his attacks and admitted the trolling was ‘out of order’
He went on to say he felt ‘terrible’ about the online attacks, explaining: ‘Now I’ve met you and heard where you’re at, it’s a wrong thing for me to do.
‘I never knew at the time, it was just angering. It was who do these people think they are? You’re all f****** rich and elite. What do they know about my life?’
Meanwhile Gina revealed she had received worse abuse since Brexit was over, saying: ‘I’ve noticed that a lot of the anger I was getting before, was about Brexit.
‘But now its over, its changed. It’s about being a woman of colour, that I look like an ape. I actually get told worse things now than I was before.’
Alan shook his head, saying: ‘I don’t agree with what’s going on with yourself. It’s well out of order.’
‘These debates are important because were we’re coming from different slants and where we’re looking at stuff.’
Meanwhile Gina said: ‘I hope you can become a messenger because all I worry about is my son and your son. I don’t want them to be in a country full of hate.’
The investment fund manager and campaigner first came to public prominence in 2016 when she launched a legal challenge to then prime minister Theresa May’s decision to use the royal prerogative to trigger Article 50, starting a two-year countdown to the UK’s departure from the EU.
The High Court ruled that the prime minister did not have the power to trigger Article 50 without the authority of Parliament, a ruling ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in January 2017.