Zimbabwe: Fake rally in Glasgow cost £2,600 to push for lifting of sanctions, according to Al Jazeera

A rally presented as spontaneous, held in Glasgow during COP26 in 2021 to demand the lifting of British sanctions against Emmerson Mnangagwa's government, was reportedly paid £2,600. This is the claim made by the Al Jazeera investigation "Contract Killers and the Far Right," broadcast on October 21, 2026, and reported on October 22 by the Zimbabwean outlet Nehanda Radio.

According to Al Jazeera, this sum was provided by Uebert Angel, founder of the Spirit Embassy-GoodNews Church, whom Emmerson Mnangagwa had appointed in March 2021 as ambassador-at-large and special presidential envoy for Europe and the Americas. The event was intended to project the image of British citizens taking to the streets to defend Harare.

A British intermediary implicated

The organization was reportedly entrusted to Jack Ross, managing director of Turning Point UK, the British branch of the American group Turning Point USA, and a Conservative candidate in 2023. An undercover Al Jazeera journalist had joined the organization as a videographer in 2021. According to the investigation, Jack Ross agreed to pay several thousand pounds to Allan Nesbitt, a Glasgow man convicted of violent offenses and described by Al Jazeera as having links to the Ulster Volunteer Force, an organization banned in the United Kingdom.

The documentary goes further: during meetings filmed with a hidden camera, Allan Nesbitt allegedly offered to have a fictitious business competitor, invented by the journalists, killed for sums of up to £50,000 according to the Scottish Sun, and later displayed firearms during a video call. These allegations are not based on any court ruling. Jack Ross disputes the findings of the investigation and claims that his recorded comments were not serious.

A suspension and a police review

The consequences were immediate in the United Kingdom. The Conservative Party has suspended Jack Ross's membership with immediate effect, pending an internal investigation, reports the International Business Times UK. Scottish police say they are aware of the documentary and intend to examine it to determine if any offenses were committed. Neither Uebert Angel nor the Zimbabwean government have publicly responded, according to Nehanda Radio.

Uebert Angel had already been targeted in 2023 by the "Gold Mafia" series, which showed him offering fake criminals a scheme to bring large sums of cash into Zimbabwe under diplomatic cover, in exchange for gold. He denied any wrongdoing, claiming he had feigned cooperation as part of an intelligence operation.

The lifting of Western sanctions is a long-standing and legitimate demand of Harare, which many in Africa view as a collective punishment inflicted on Zimbabweans. But if the described facts are established, it is the method that is problematic: buying the appearance of popular support abroad from far-right networks amounts to substituting staging for political debate, and offering an argument to those one claims to convince. Zimbabweans have the right to know with what money their image is being defended abroad.