'This radicalisation is impossible to fight,' says son of anti-vaxxer Kate Shemirani

26 July 2021, 15:54 | Updated: 26 July 2021, 17:00

Sebastian Shemirani reflects on mother's hatred

By Tim Dodd

The anti-vax conspiracist Kate Shemirani who suggested doctors and nurses could be 'hung' is 'too far gone to change her mind' according to her son, who thinks she should be prosecuted.

It comes after the struck-off nurse made a "vile" speech likening doctors and nurses to Nazis during a rally protesting Covid vaccinations on Saturday.

Speaking to Maajid Nawaz, Kate Shemirani's son Sebastian said: "I don't think my mum is worth responding to directly, because as I said the first time... she's too far gone to change her mind. The only thing you can do is try and convince other people to step away from what she's advocating for.

"The problem with my mum's belief system is that unless people who are hearing her things for the first time are introduced to just how far those ideas go - what she believes in the maximum craziness of it - they can be lulled into this false sense of security where she is just criticising vaccine passports or something.

"This rally is a great example of it. She claims she's doing the rally against vaccine passports, and she hijacks it to call for executions, it sounds like."

Mr Shemirani said that since he told his mother he was getting a Covid vaccine, he has been "inundated" with messages from her that his "DNA is going to be changed, the enzyme is created by the devil itself."

"This is as far as her ideas go," said Mr Shemirani.

"There's only one more step in terms of how crazy it can get, and that's people actually getting hurt, and that's what my mum is actually calling for. So this is the grand finale if you like."

Caller explains his experience with conspiracy theories

Maajid then asked whether "a process of radicalisation" was occurring.

Mr Shemirani replied: "Yes. It's interesting because as I've grown up I've seen my mum get more and more radicalised.

"What's interesting about conspiracy theories as opposed to systemised radicalisation like you'd see in terrorist groups on the right or left, is that the radicalisation doesn't happen from any particular leader.

"The way I watched her get radicalised, she'd go on the internet and take little pieces of different people's philosophies. So it'll be a Reddit post over here, a blog post over there, and it's almost like a leaderless, headless entity.

"It's impossible to fight because there's no one person you can put in jail to stop my mum from believing it."

The video of Kate Shemirani's speech which was circulated on social media is being investigated by the Met Police.