John Hutchins

John Hutchins was a spy sent by the United Kingdom Independence Party under the alias 'Edward Johnson' to obtain information and influence Stand Up to Ukip, an anti-Nigel Farage protest group during the 2015 general election campaign.

Activities

Protestors from the Thanet branch of Stand Up to Ukip have claimed to have been suspicious of a man claiming to be 'Edward Johnson', a builder from Essex, who tried to encourage activists to deface posters and heckle outside meetings. They then found photographs of 'Johnson' standing next to Nigel Farage and his close protection officers on a Ukip members' Facebook page. The group have published texts from 'Johnson' where he provided a list of Farage's public events and encouraged the group to abuse Farage, something the group believe would have discredited them. The campaigners have searched the internet for the mobile number used by 'Edward Johnson' and found it was listed on the website of John Hutchins, whose Twitter biography says he is a close protection officer and LinkedIn page says he worked for Secura Associates, the company used by Farage to provide his security.

The party have admitted 'Johnson' was an informant they sent into the Thanet branch of the group during the election campaign. A spokesperson has said, 'in order to provide reasonable security it was of course necessary to have information from the inside. In order to do this it was important to gain the trust of the activists, an approach used by a great many security operations tasked with protecting the safety and well being of a targeted individual.'