In an owning of comical, corncob proportions, a group of far-right YouTubers sailing around the Mediterranean Sea to “defend Europe” from nongovernmental refugee organizations has received assistance from, none other than, one of those organizations.
According to BuzzFeed News, the group, known as Generation Identity and helmed by Canadian YouTuber Lauren Southern, had commissioned a ship called the C-Star to sail the open seas and protect Europe from refugee-rescuing NGOs that it alleges are fronts for human trafficking. However, according to an NGO called Sea-Eye, it had been contacted by the EU Naval Force’s Operation Sophia with the message that the C-star was floating off the coast of Libya and unable to move.
An Operation Sophia spokesperson confirmed with the publication that a patrol aircraft spotted the C-Star near Libya on Friday at 3am ET. Sea-Eye was then dispatched to help, as its ship was the closest.
However, in several tweets, Generation Identity’s “Defend Europe” campaign and Southern herself have insisted that they turned off their main engine in order to fix a technical problem before entering the “search and rescue” zone off Libya. As they explain it, the engine turning off notified nearby vessels that the ship was “not under command.”
🇬🇧Please people, this is no biggie. No need to panic.
— Defend Europe (@DefendEuropelD) August 11, 2017
NO PANIC AT ALL!!!!!!! #DefendEurope
https://twitter.com/DefendEuropeID/status/895966208419393536
https://twitter.com/Lauren_Southern/status/896035454889336832
https://twitter.com/Lauren_Southern/status/896034593014284288
Perhaps the “C” in “C-Star” stands for “corncob,” after all.
"im not owned! im not owned!!", i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob
— wint (@dril) November 11, 2011
H/T the Cut