Vaccine sceptic Piers Corbyn was apparently tricked into ‘accepting’ a fake £10,000 bribe to stop criticising AstraZeneca.
The anti-lockdown campaigner was filmed appearing to be willing to take the cash – later revealed to be Monopoly money – after falling foul of a ‘skilful’ YouTube prank.
YouTubers Josh Pieters and Archie Manners posed as AstraZeneca shareholders in the video, asking Corbyn to start taking aim at Pfizer or Moderna.
Pieters posted on Twitter: ‘Yesterday @archiemanners and I convinced anti-vaxxer Piers Corbyn to take £10,000 he thought came from AstraZeneca to stop criticising their vaccine.
‘Except it was monopoly money and we recorded the whole thing.’
Corbyn – brother of former Labour leader, Jeremy – met the duo in Sloane Square, central London, unaware he was being filmed by hidden cameras.
He branded the YouTube pranksters ‘imposters’ and claims the video is ‘heavily edited’ with ‘dishonest commentary’.
Corbyn later revealed in a video posted on Twitter how he ‘burst out laughing’ once he realised he had fallen foul of the ‘skilful’ prank.
He took the cash ‘rather naïvely’ – but insisted the YouTubers ‘took clips of conversation to make it look like something’.
He told how he was ‘distracted’ when the money was put in his bag and didn’t look at it until he got home.
‘When I got home, here we have it, a pack of Monopoly money…which I have to say, I burst out laughing, because they done it so well, it was so skilful.’
But Corbyn has faced criticism online after the footage emerged.
His nephew, Tommy Corbyn – son of Islington MP Jeremy – branded his uncle a ‘t*t’ on Twitter after he was ‘exposed’ in the sting.
He is said to have agreed to the meeting after Pieters and Manners contacted him via email proposing to make a donation to his ‘Stop New Normal’ campaign.
Pieters tells Corbyn: ‘If we can help your campaign in any way then that’s obviously going to help us. We’ve got shared interests.
‘We actually even brought something along today that is just a token of our intention of helping out with your campaign.’
Manners then produces an envelope containing £10,000 in cash and shows it to Piers Corbyn – who describes the money as ‘fantastic’.
The funds are later swapped for the fake money.
Corbyn told MailOnline: ‘The video has been very heavily edited with dishonest commentary and leaves out my repeated statements that anything we accept has to be unconditional.
‘It is false that I agreed any change in policy whatsoever and I stated to these imposters that all Covid vaccines are dangerous and we weren’t changing any of our views against vaccines and vaccine passporting.
‘The video starts off with a false claim. The emails they sent said nothing at all about the interests of these gentleman.
‘This was only revealed at the meeting. He claimed he made his money from a restaurant chain and later said he had an investment in a vaccine company which made him feel guilty and he wanted to give a gift because of his feelings of guilt.
‘I agreed nothing about limiting or changing what we have been and will continue to say about the various Covid vaccines.’
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