David Icke is arguably the UK’s most famous conspiracy theorist and antisemite. 

Icke emerged into the public eye as a sports presenter in the 1980s and briefly as a Green Party representative. After experiencing an “awakening” in 1990, he became notorious for his extreme conspiratorial beliefs, in particular those concerning the existence of evil extraterrestrials and “hybrid human-reptile” bloodlines he believes to be controlling world events. However, the “reptilian theory” is just one element of the hugely convoluted narrative Icke has developed over his long career, which incorporates vaccinations, mind control, Satanic ritual abuse, 9/11 trutherism and a barrage of paranormal and New Age beliefs. 

Ickism borrows heavily from pre-existing New World Order (NWO) narratives, many of them drawn from American far-right militia movements. Whilst he denies charges of antisemitism, he regularly blames nonsensical subcategories of Jewishness – such as “Rothschild Zionist/Khazarian Mafia/Sabbatean-Frankists” – for long-standing antisemitic tropes. For example, he has attempted to rehabilitate the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – a notorious forgery that outlines a Jewish plot for world domination – by claiming that it accurately documents the plans of a “Sabbatean-Frankist Death Cult” rather than all Jews. He has also long demonised George Soros, the Rothschild family and other Jewish individuals and organisations as supernaturally evil puppeteers. 

Icke’s prolific output and gift for self-promotion has enabled him to spread his blend of NWO narratives, antisemitism and the paranormal to a worldwide audience. From 2020, he has effectively exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to gain a new prominence, denying the existence of the virus in videos viewed millions of times and becoming a figurehead for the conspiracy theory-driven protest movement in the UK and overseas. This included headlining a series of large anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine demonstrations in London. 

Icke’s online reach has been hindered by bans from several mainstream social media platforms, although he had his Twitter account reinstated in early 2023 (at time of writing he has 570,000 followers on the platform). The ageing conspiracist is increasingly delegating duties to his sons Jaymie and Gareth, who are themselves prominent in the UK’s conspiracy theory scene and run the streaming service “Ickonic”.