Why Vegans Are Attacking Vegan Camp Out

How tribalism, misinformation, and purity tests threaten progress for animals

If you’d prefer the video version of this post, click the play button to watch on YouTube.

A movement in conflict

I’ve been in the vegan movement since 2017, and I’ve seen just about every big drama that’s popped up over the years. But one big drama that has stuck around far longer than it should have, has been the drama around the UK vegan festival, ‘Vegan Camp Out’.

And shockingly, most of this isn’t coming from outside the movement. It’s coming from vegans. From insults and smear campaigns to planned protests and even threats of violence—how did it come to this?

What is Vegan Camp Out – and why it matters

Vegan Camp Out (VCO) is a huge summer festival, reaching around 13,000 people at its peak, with this year’s event downsizing to a still huge 7,000 people. It’s promoted as a big music festival type event, with all sorts of entertainment including big name speakers, dance tents, and an education tent that focuses on animal advocacy and activism.

There’s also a ridiculous amount of vegan food available, and tons of stalls including animal charities, and activism groups—almost everything you’d want for a big vegan event like this. I’ve had some amazing times there, and one of my favourite things about the festival is I get the chance to meet so many of you lovely people who support my work.

It might sound like I’m selling it here, and I do promote VCO on my YouTube channel. But this post isn’t sponsored, and it’s important to note that I only work with VCO because I believe in the event. If I didn’t support them, I wouldn’t work with them.

To further clarify that point—I’ve been approached by many other companies over the years that have offered some pretty big money to do promotions, but I’ve only promoted a few products like the Plants Against Veganity card game, made by a passionate vegan and activist, Omni vet certified vegan dog food to help feed our doggos with quality animal-free food, and Vegavero, a 100% vegan supplements company run by vegans, many of which are activists. I only work with products and businesses I like and support, so you can be assured that I mean what I say in this post. I wouldn’t write this for money.

Over the last 3 years, some vegans have made it their mission to plague VCO with accusations, drama and even threats of violence. Why does a 100% vegan festival working with animal charities get hate from vegans?

The three groups fuelling the drama

The drama around VCO is a toxic combination of 3 types of people:

• Deeply troubled individuals who gain a sense of importance and status from attacking this event, executing a never ending flurry of fabrications and misinformation (some who are potentially not vegan at all, I suspect some may be infiltrators paid to disrupt this event).

• Vegans who consider themselves to be “radical” who have ironically fallen victim to reactionism—opposing new innovations because they don’t follow a certain path they believe veganism and animal rights should follow.

• Vegans who are genuinely misinformed and have been tricked into removing support for the event by the first two groups.

“Deeply troubled” and “potential infiltrator” are big claims to make, but when you see some of their behaviour, I hope you’ll see what I mean.

The personal attacks: when criticism turns into abuse

I’ve seen these vegans say Jordan, the founder of VCO is an evil little runt, dangerous and needs to be investigated by the police. That he has mental issues and should be locked up. They call him vacuous human vermin, deranged, a psychopath, disgusting. One of them said if they were going to commit violence it would be against him.

Here you can see two people discussing and making jokes about the size of his genitals.

Here you can see comments about Jordan’s sister, that she oozes arrogance and they’re both vile people.

People wishing his parents had used contraceptives or “swallowed”, that the best part of him “ran down his mum’s leg”. That Jordan is an incel, “unloved by his dysfunctional family”, that he stalks people, is a sociopath and needs professional help. And threatening him with physical violence, with someone saying he “hopes to bump into him” after calling him a prick, and accusing him of exploiting veganism for money.

I’ve seen people claiming the founders of the event aren’t vegan or are anti-vegan, of course with no evidence and with stories that appear to be made up, both Jordan and his sister who run the event have been vegan for years. But what if they weren’t vegan? What would that mean?

Well, I’m sure the vegans making this stuff up support plenty of products made by non-vegans. Take Alpro, a hugely popular plant milk brand owned by Danone, a company known for producing dairy products. Or a more on the nose example, McDonalds and the McPlant. There are vegan cafes and vegan events run by non-vegans too, that plenty of vegans support.

I’m not saying this as a “gotcha”, to proclaim they’re hypocrites, so I win—the aim of this post is to try and bring some sense to all of this. I’m happy these vegans support vegan products, despite them being owned by or sold in non-vegan places. We have to make compromises in a non-vegan world, that’s how we make progress.

And as I said, Jordan and Ellis who run the event are vegan, so why support those products, but not a vegan event? If you go to the cinema, bowling, holidays, and buy vegan products at the supermarket, but you rally against VCO, that’s not based on morals, it doesn’t help animals, it’s just that you have a personal issue with the festival.

I’ve spoken to vegans who quietly support VCO but stay silent—because they’ve seen what happens to anyone who speaks out. And honestly, I don’t blame them. I’m sure we’ll see some hostility in the comments here too. Are you starting to see the problem? Imagine if it was you or someone you cared about being spoken about like that. I hope you’ll agree with me that when I said “deeply troubled” and “potential infiltrator”, I was maybe being too nice.

What did VCO do to deserve this?

Where does all this hatred stem from? Where there’s smoke there’s fire right, he must have done something to deserve all this?

It all started with a few legitimate complaints and a few misunderstandings, and we’re going to dive deep into those complaints and misunderstandings later in this post. Jordan and the VCO team were probably a little defensive when they were getting hit with these complaints and dealing with the misunderstandings. I mean we’re all human, and this kind of thing happens. No one enjoys being criticised.

But what might have started as one or two reasonable complaints has snowballed into tribalism and violent intent. As this group of individuals has grown, so has the intensity of their anger, and the lies that come with it. It’s an echo chamber of triggers—people constantly triggering each other with new information they either made up or misconstrued for dramatic effect. This outrages others in the group who tag more onto the stories, lies and insults, and the cycle just repeats until we end up with jokes about wishing Jordan’s mum swallowed and threats to physically harm him in the street.

You know those great moments when you’re telling a story and it gets funnier and funnier the more you get into it, and your friends make jokes about it? Imagine that but instead of it being funny, its lies, rumours, horrible insults and threats. And the threats aren’t just limited to these clearly unwell people, which brings us onto the radical vegans. What’s going on with the radical vegans? What drama are they causing?

There can be some crossover between those who are deeply troubled and maybe suffering some sort of identity crisis and the radical vegan types, but there are actually many well-meaning, good people in the radical vegan world, and I’d like to focus on those.

The more radical types criticising VCO tend to be associated with a group called the Hunt Saboteurs. They’re an incredible group based in the UK that tries to stop hunters from operating. They put their bodies and even their lives on the line, as the hunters tend to have police protection, so they get away with a lot–including hitting and beating the sabs, running their horses at them, and other violent behaviour.

It goes without saying that the work the Hunt Sabs does is incredibly brave, I am thankful for what they do… Even though they’re probably going to hate me for what I’m about to say.

Unfortunately, some members of the Hunt Sabs have been a core part of the drama and misinformation around this event. Some have even threatened Jordan, the founder of the event, with physical threats. Saying they’re associated with anti fascists and he better watch himself as they don’t muck about.

Trying to track his IP addresses, suggesting they’re going to find out where he lives and hurt him.

Wholesome, right?

Why do the Hunt Sabs and other radical vegans want to hurt Jordan? Why are they against the event? There are some lies about VCO that these types like to push.

What’s actually true about the criticisms?

The claims they continue to push are:

• VCO banned Hunt Sabs from attending the event.

• The event is operating on land where hunting takes place.

• The event is operating on land where factory farming takes place.

None of this is true, and no matter how many times the record has been set straight, these lies continue to persist.

• VCO has never banned Hunt Sabs, but there was one year where it seemed they wouldn’t be able to allow the group to hold a stall at the event due to pressure from the owners of the land. After further negotiation, this was overturned, and the sabs were invited to host a stall. They refused the invitation to host a stall and raise vital funds for their work because they were upset about being temporarily not allowed to host a stall there, and have held a grudge ever since. Actually, that grudge got so bad that members of the Hunt Sabs have dedicated themselves to trying to shut the event down, some even saying they’re going to protest outside of it. So I think any chance of hosting a stall there now is long gone—I find it deeply sad when I think of all the good the group could’ve done for animals with the money they could’ve raised at this event.

• VCO has confirmed that although some hunting takes place in the land surrounding the VCO venue, and there is farming activity some 4 miles away from the venue, no hunting or farming takes place on the venue land itself, which is good to know.

But what if there was hunting on the land? What if, in the weeks leading up to the event, hunters had been shooting on the land, what would that mean? Would it make a difference? And why?

The cinema test

Most land in the UK has some connection to farming or hunting, this is especially true when it comes to land in rural areas, where most large outdoor events are held. This is unavoidable, just as it’s unavoidable to go to the cinema or a vegan cafe without funding non-vegan activities (the land owners of both the cinema and vegan cafe are likely also involved in farming, and are at least certainly not going to be vegan).

I know it doesn’t feel nice to be stood where animals have been killed, but the difference between being where it actually happened and being somewhere where your money goes to profiting people who hunt, farm or buy meat, dairy and eggs is more a personal thing, not a moral thing.

It doesn’t matter if you’re on the land where it happens or you’re in a vegan cafe and the money goes to someone who funds it—the outcome is the same. You’re funding someone for non-vegan activity. There is no moral superiority in avoiding a vegan festival because you don’t like the landowner, but eating at a vegan restaurant, or buying vegan products from businesses and land owned by the same kinds of people.

Confusing personal preferences with moral claims always causes massive issues for this movement, but, like I said, VCO confirmed that no hunting or farming takes place on the venue land anyway.

We have to make compromises in a non-vegan world—we purchase tasty vegan products, eat at vegan restaurants, visit vegan animal sanctuaries and go to vegan events knowing that they are all hosted on land that either is involved in something we don’t agree with, or is owned by someone who is doing things we don’t agree with. We have to make peace with knowing they are profiting from our vegan activity, as we try and change the world. This compromise is what makes veganism accessible to the masses, and as we forge this new world for animals, that’s absolutely something we need to keep doing.

The bigger picture: What this fight Is really about

The Hunt Sabs and the radical types within tend to hold anarchistic, anti-capitalist views, and many of them perceive this event through that lens. Some have claimed that the VCO founders are millionaires, and while they definitely make money from the event, they definitely aren't millionaires. And if they are millionaires, then all I’ll say is where is my boat?

Making money as a vegan from a vegan business should never be frowned upon. What would you rather they make money from? Working in an office helping an actual millionaire line his pockets? Someone who almost certainly wouldn’t be vegan, and wouldn’t be doing anything to improve the world for anyone but himself, let alone animals?

It’s similar to how some vegans criticise vegan lifestyle influencers for not talking about the animals, something I’ve also done in the past. I mean I get it, but would you rather they did their lifestyle influencing for non-vegan products and recipes instead? Definitely not, so maybe it’s best if we support them in normalising the vegan lifestyle.

We need to focus on the bigger picture and stop finding these fights with each other.

It’s also worth mentioning that since it began, VCO has helped put over £6 million into the hands of vegan businesses, including around £500,000 that has been raised by animal charities and sanctuaries at the event. Think about all the animals that’s helped, and we have vegans trying to tear it down.

Despite all the good it does, the radical type vegans won’t budge. Every year the Hunt Sabs miss the opportunity to raise vital funds for their work to help animals, and they do it out of some idea of principle. A principle that because, for a moment, they weren't allowed to host a stall there, so they throw it all out and refuse to ever host a stall there.

Or the principle that they won’t support it because they believe the event is held on hunting or farming land, despite not upholding this principle in many other parts of their lives. I saw a comment from someone arguing against that point, they were saying that it’s because the event is a vegan festival, and it’s completely unnecessary—that’s why they rally against it and hold it to a higher standard.

Really? I’m willing to bet most of these individuals buy vegan ice cream, vegan burgers, eat at vegan cafes and restaurants—all completely unnecessary, all absolutely kicking some profits back to a non-vegan at best, or a hunter/farmer at worst. And this isn’t me saying they shouldn't do that, they absolutely should. These products and businesses help make veganism accessible and normalised. I’m saying on top of supporting these things, they should also support VCO.

Or if festivals aren’t your thing, fair enough, but at least don’t rally against it. At least don’t make out that this vegan event is the source of all evil in the world, and that Jordan, the founder, is Satan himself. The fastest way to a vegan future is to give people what they want, but vegan, and that’s what VCO is trying to do.

And then we have the saddest group of all, the vegans who are genuinely misinformed and have been tricked into removing support for the event by the first two groups—this is genuinely the saddest part of all this. Reasonable, kind, well-meaning people have been twisted by everything I just covered. Some are simply so overwhelmed by all the drama they just don’t want to risk it. They don’t know the full story, but all this hostility and drama upset them so much they don’t want to go anymore. Some of these people attended many years before now too.

Others have only received one side of the story, and have been utterly convinced by it. Remember, we’re talking about vegans here, compassionate, empathetic vegans who woke up from the lies the meat dairy and egg industries were selling. They’re used to finding out shocking truths about the things they once supported, so they’re more open to it here too.

They think they can trust the Hunt Sabs, they can trust these passionate vegans who seem to be so sure of what they’re saying and the information they’re sharing. Why would they lie? And so they believe it, and they tell other people about it. They’re tricked into hating a vegan event that raises millions for vegan businesses, sanctuaries and charities. A vegan event that provides a vegan alternative to the big summer festivals that people love so much. They’re tricked into hating progress for veganism, and progress for animals.

Okay, but who really cares about a single vegan festival? Can it actually change the world for animals?

A personal plea: Support what builds

This isn’t just about one vegan business, this is about the future, it’s about the world we want to see. If we want a better world for animals, we need to stop holding vegan businesses to such ridiculously high unrealistic standards, especially while we go about our days supporting all sorts of non-vegan businesses like cinemas, supermarkets, internet companies, estate agents, and everything else.

We accept that as vegans, we have to make compromises while living in a non-vegan world, we have to be understanding that vegan businesses also have to make compromises. That’s true for almost all vegan businesses, even vegan charities like animal sanctuaries. I’ll say it again because I really believe it: The fastest way to a vegan future is to give people what they want, but vegan. VCO and other vegan businesses like it do exactly that.

If we continue to berate, criticise and even protest vegan businesses because they just aren’t vegan enough for our liking, everyone loses. The vegans lose a great product, the meat eaters who might have been interested in trying something new lose out on a chance to see that veganism can be accessible, and most importantly, the animals lose out. If we continue like this, we have no movement, we have no influence, and the animals have no chance.

If you’re reading this and feeling like the vegan movement has become a warzone, I feel you—but please don’t let this drama push you away. This movement is bigger than a few bitter people shouting on Facebook.

Support the things that build, not the people who destroy.

Speak up for progress. Speak up for unity.

You will find me giving a talk at the Education Stage at this year’s Vegan Camp Out, and I’ll also be doing a metalcore and deathcore DJ set over in the Jungle—I hope to see you there supporting vegan businesses, and helping build a better world.