Cross-Country Hybrid: AAG,Conspiracy and Sovereignty.

The Agriculture Action Group (AAG) was co-founded on election night in October 2020 by Heather-Meri Pennycook (HMP) with fellow Advance Party candidates Robert Wilson and Fred Roberts. Following the group’s split in September 2021, HMP continued the platform as Ag Action, promoting anti-COVID materials alongside conspiratorial, anti-police, and anti-government narratives. AAG positions itself (evident by content) at the intersection of super-conspiracies and orthodox sovereign doctrine, using the latter as a form of validation for conspiratorial claims.

This profile is focused on the sovereign elements rather its broader array of conspiracy narratives. While AAG’s second iteration appears to have lapsed into hiatus, its discursive trail remains evident. The strategy of misaligning rural sector challenges with sovereign anti-government doctrine is a common tactic, one also observed in international contexts. 

Rural in focus, AAG discourse draws on familiar sovereignist assertions that state agencies are United Kingdom (UK) corporations with no jurisdiction over “living men or women” and promotes tactics such as “non-entry” [trespass] notices and allodial titles to reject state authority and obligations including rates and taxation. HMP claims that AAG held numerous community meetings addressing environmental legislation, alleged “land grabs,” and related themes, reportedly attracting hundreds of attendees.

While AAG supported Groundswell’s 2021 Howl of a Protest, Groundswell leaders and Federated Farmers rejected the group’s “extreme” views. Clutha Mayor Bryan Cadogan criticised AAG meetings for advancing “extreme political agendas” that undermined society and incited “friction and disharmony.” He specifically condemned advice to “deregister” as a taxpaying citizen and to peacefully resist police intervention as socially corrosive, a view that seemingly aligned with Facebook who removed the group. 

The rhetoric on AAG’s content toward police is a core element of the anti-government and anti-authority stance. For example the circulation of claims that police were directed to “get rid of people” who criticised the government and alleged that the state purchased armoured vehicles a decade earlier to prepare for public control and suppression. On 24 December 2021, HMP asserted that a “special task force” was planning a “big raid” and that she was “top of the list for arrest” along with others. In response, she urged supporters to file non-entry (trespass) notice, actions she says were construed by police as “threats.” She maintains that police should only enter private land for non-“nefarious” purposes but emphasises “nonviolent noncompliance.” While no evidence substantiates these claims, the episode reportedly caused a rift with a local common-lore group, which blamed her for tensions over non-entry notices, illustrating internal frictions within sovereignist counter-publics.

As part of AAG’s content, HMP circulated “Living Lore” guidance encouraging others to reject the national census. The material framed census staff as agents of the “system” and instructed people to hand over bespoke “Living Lore” documents instead. These materials were punctuated by a caution that they were powerful on a “gut and spirit level” and not to mix them with other [sovereign] “legal’ systems. The form was to be produced in duplicate, preferably in red ink, with a claim that it would “change everything” and allow individuals to step into “freedom”. Thus infering that ordinary state obligations were really methods of control, while recasting refusal as the path to empowerment, not unlawful behaviour. She goes on to give advice about what to do if the census workers follow up on non-returns (see below) which includes “educating them”.