Fake Yvette Cooper Guardian article circulates online

A screenshot widely shared on social media supposedly shows a Guardian opinion article published by the home secretary Yvette Cooper headlined: “If you suspect a family member, a neighbour, a friend or a work colleague of being Far-Right please inform the police immediately”.

But the Guardian told Full Fact “this is not and never has been a Guardian article or social media post”.

The screenshot copies the layout and style of real opinion columns on the Guardian’s website.

Ms Cooper has written columns for the Guardian, but her last one was in June 2024, just before the general election. Full Fact could not find any headlines published in the Guardian under her name that matched the one being shared in the viral image. The author picture of Ms Cooper used by the Guardian is also different to the one used in the fake article, which is also her official House of Commons portrait.

Full Fact has also contacted Ms Cooper for comment and will update this article if we hear back.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen fake Guardian articles shared on social media as if they were real. We’ve previously fact checked claims about fake articles supposedly written by the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Independent MP Apsana Begum.

While it might be obvious to some that these screenshots are fake, it’s not always so clear to more casual internet users. We’ve written more about why we write about these types of misinformation here.

We’ve also seen other examples of both entirely fake and altered content supposedly published by the BBC, Daily Telegraph and other media organisations.