The radicalisation of the man known as “Steve James” – one of the men centrally involved in harassing and distressing Green MP Hannah Spencer in Manchester the weekend before last – is a fascinating study in the political evolution of a far-right activist.
James’s real name is Stephen James Jeffries and his early political engagements were, by conventional standards, broadly left wing or liberal.
In 2014, he attended the anti-fracking protests at Barton Moss, near Manchester, as a genuine environmental activist.
An ex-Royal Marine commando, he arrived wearing his Commando beret and service medals, explicitly hoping to challenge assumptions about who environmental protesters might be.
Charged with aggravated trespass, he was acquitted at trial in 2016.
Five years later, he was photographed outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court lending vocal support to Julian Assange’s fight against extradition to the United States.
Nothing in this trajectory predicted where he would end up.
Yet the Covid pandemic appears to have been the decisive radicalising moment.
When the pandemic struck he was as a fire fighter, but resistance to workplace mask requirements and his use of Freedom of Information requests to challenge his employer’s Covid policies marked a turn right wards.
In 2021, he and his wife, Sue Chatton, founded Rebels on Roundabouts, staging roadside demonstrations in Stockport promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
When the couple married, at Gretna Green (in Scotland) in 2021, they defied the then requirement to wear facemasks during the ceremony.
The couple became associated with The Light, a free newspaper that provides a platform for hard-right conspiracy content, from Covid denialism to extreme-David Icke-style anti-establishment fantasies.
One he has publicly embraced recently is the theory that Princess Diana was murdered by the establishment. And he wondered aloud if the King had anything to do with it.
Sue Chatton has contributed articles to The Light and raised funds for the publication.
In 2023, Chatton stood as an independent candidate in a Stockport local election, finishing last with 5.6% of the vote.
Now Jefferies, in the guise of “Steve James” (alias “Edge of the Matrix”), has turned to “auditor”-style bullying and harassment of trans people and their allies – including the newly elected Green Party Member of Parliament, Hannah Spencer, who was chased and harried by Jeffries and his sandwich board buddy, Alex Jardine in Manchester the weekend before last.
Spencer had to be rescued and escorted away by police.
In fact, his schtick is a carbon copy of the approach used by a Canadian anti-trans campaigner (and former Scientologist) known as “Billboard Chris” (alias Chris Elston). “Steve James” has himself admitted that he is a “Pound Shop Billboard Chris” and a “tribute act”.
The methodology is borrowed from Elston wholesale: confrontational street activism, filmed encounters designed for social media virality, and the deliberate targeting of public figures and institutions.
Celebrity status
In this new endeavour, he has the full support of his wife, who (calling herself “Sue James”) has accompanied him on numerous interviews with self-styled alternative media outlets and posts vociferously about trans issues on social media.
This campaigning is bringing the pair a level of celebrity (and, presumably, income) that they could never have achieved by merely standing on a roundabout in Stockport shouting nonsense about vaccines at passing traffic.
Most recently, Steve Jeffries travelled to Washington DC for an de-transitioning conference, where he was made welcome by the far-right, and hugely wealthy, America First Policy Institute, whose income in 2023 was over $27 million.
Unfortunately for the Jeffries, their new-found high profile is also being accompanied by a level of scrutiny that they may not appreciate.
