{"id":791401,"date":"2026-07-10T13:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/791401\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T13:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:19:16","slug":"how-pauline-hanson-courts-uks-far-right-and-builds-a-global-brand-with-pseudo-events-and-publicity-stunts-one-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/791401\/","title":{"rendered":"How Pauline Hanson courts UK\u2019s far-right \u2013 and builds a global brand \u2013 with \u2018pseudo events\u2019 and publicity stunts | One Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pauline Hanson\u2019s highly publicised meetings with controversial far-right figures in the UK will drive international eyeballs to her content and continue building the global brand \u2013 and that\u2019s by design, far-right experts say.<\/p>\n

The One Nation<\/a> leader is visiting on a \u201cfact-finding mission\u201d with her chief-of-staff, James Ashby, ticking off a number of the country\u2019s most divisive personalities.<\/p>\n

It comes as the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, warned disaffected voters<\/a> who \u201cfeel like lighting a match\u201d that supporting One Nation \u201cisn\u2019t worth the eternity of pain that will follow\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a one-person show. Their policies are incoherent,\u201d he told ABC radio on Friday.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s meet-and-greets have so far included pop star turned radical-right royalty, Holly Valance, Reform UK officials and far-right activist and convicted criminal, Tommy Robinson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Queensland senator will also feature in an upcoming long-form podcast with Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Yaxley-Lennon is perhaps best known in Australia as the man whose appearance on Karl Stefanovic\u2019s podcast in June led to Channel Nine severing ties with their former golden boy.<\/p>\n

Yaxley-Lennon is an anti-Islamic, far-right political activist, known for his role in major UK anti-immigration marches, and is a vocal supporter of Russia, including its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Beyond his political views, Yaxley-Lennon\u2019s rap sheet is long. The 43-year-old was given a five-year stalking protection order and has twice been convicted for contempt of court.<\/p>\n

He was jailed in 2024 for repeating false claims about a 15-year-old Syrian refugee in defiance of a court injunction.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s decision to join him on his podcast was no doubt linked to his recent appearance on Stefanovic\u2019s podcast.<\/p>\n

While the video was removed from various platforms, and Stefanovic lost his lucrative position as the Today show\u2019s host, One Nation re-published the interview on its social media channels.<\/p>\n

Far-right researchers told Guardian Australia the move has all the hallmarks of an effective and proven digital strategy \u2013 one that works whether or not the mainstream media take notice.<\/p>\n

Dr Imogen Richards, a criminology researcher at Deakin University, said announcing or appearing on podcasts with contentious counterparts was akin to a \u201cpseudo event\u201d that\u2019s as much about the publicity as it is about the content.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim of these types of manoeuvres by more fringe, or formerly more fringe, political actors is to shift the Overton window and move the parameters of public political debate rightward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Richards said Hanson\u2019s rise in popularity meant her decisions between now and the federal election couldn\u2019t be ignored, or dismissed as attention-grabbing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat [Hanson\u2019s] doing is building international far-right alliances and signposting them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Researchers for the anti-fascist group, White Rose Society, said their meeting served the \u201cattention economy\u201d with a shared hostility \u201cagainst non-white people\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe think in reporting on this, it\u2019s important to identify the agenda that the people involved are trying to push and avoid furthering it,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeetings like this should be reported on, but where we find the media fails is in reporting them either in their own terms or in a watered-down version of their own terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Hanson and Yaxley-Lennon, their version is that this is a meeting of minds between two firebrands unafraid to speak their truth and unafraid of being cancelled simply for the crime of sharing ideas. What those ideas are isn\u2019t important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Kurt Sengul, a far-right researcher at Macquarie University, said One Nation didn\u2019t mind generating negative headlines as it played into its victim narrative against establishment media and politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike mainstream parties, who do everything possible to avoid controversy and scandal, far-right parties actively seek scandal and controversy and actively derive benefit from even negative coverage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sengul said One Nation\u2019s content-creation strategy is effective, publishing popular videos that reach millions of otherwise apathetic or apolitical voters few parties could reach through mainstream media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s an under-appreciated aspect of One Nation\u2019s rise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of One Nation\u2019s success is that the media consistently, since 1996, have provided her and her party with disproportionate media coverage on platforms relative to their electoral footprint.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Now they\u2019re] attaining publicity, but also creating their own content so they\u2019re able to connect with supporters and disseminate their message without the interference or mediation of journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan McSwiney, an expert in far-right politics at the University of Canberra, said he would have once urged media not to cover One Nation\u2019s stunts but with her rise in popularity, \u201cthe horse has bolted\u201d.<\/p>\n

McSwiney said the best approach politicians and mainstream media could take was to focus on explaining who these figures are behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t tell the story that Tommy Robinson wants you to tell,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pauline Hanson\u2019s highly publicised meetings with controversial far-right figures in the UK will drive international eyeballs to her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-791401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}