‘QAnon Queen’: Buckingham Palace demands Her Majesty’s image removed from ‘Trump Train’
Buckingham Palace has requested a doctored image of the Queen wearing a 'Make America Great Again' hat and a QAnon brooch is removed from a "Trump Train" bus.
The bus was last seen at a rally for Republican representatives Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene - both outspoken supporters of the former president.
A Buckingham Palace source told ITV News they were aware of the image and representations have been made.
However, the owner of the bus Buddy Hall - who is described as a "huge supporter" of Donald Trump on the Trump Train Facebook page - has told ITV News: "I have never heard from anyone at Buckingham Palace about taking it off, it has been on the bus for over a year."
He adds: "I did not design it I just went to google and typed in cute Trump pictures and that is one of many things that came up."
Mr Hall said: "We LOVE the Queen and never meant any harm."
The first post showing Her Majesty's image on the bus is from January 2020 when the bus toured a number of states in the run up to the presidential election.
The wrapping has since been updated to read 'Trump 2024', giving its support to an unofficial presidential campaign by Mr Trump.
It appears the bus was vandalised in April 2020, and the doctored image of the Queen was covered in graffiti.
A GoFundMe page for the bus says it was designed as the "unofficial campaign tour bus to support the 2020 reelection of President Trump".
Despite setting a fundraising goal of $10,000, at the time of writing the campaign had only raised $795.
An image, originally taken in 2011, has been doctored to show the Queen wearing a hat sporting the 2016 campaign slogan of Mr Trump as well as a brooch of the letter 'Q'.
The brooch points to the QAnon conspiracy theory which has become popular among far-right groups in the United States and elsewhere.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene, at whose rally the bus was most recently seen, has shown support for the conspiracy theory in the past.
What is QAnon?
QAnon is an informal pro-Donald Trump internet conspiracy group, whose followers believe that the US has been ruled by "deep state" criminal organisations including Hollywood stars and Satan-worshipping global elites.
The conspiracy theory is centred on the baseless belief that the former president is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the "deep state" and have attacked and harassed his political opponents on social media.
Followers of the group have also claimed that the Democratic Party are engaged in international crime rings, including sex trafficking.
For more than two years supporters have tried to solve clues and intelligence they believe is being leaked by a high-level mole in the US government named "Q".
Both representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz provided statements to BuzzFeed News.
A spokesperson for Greene said the pair were not associated with the Trump Train bus but did say "you do know what a meme is right? Isn’t that what Buzzfeed is all about?"
A spokesperson for Mr Gaetz told BuzzFeed News: "We’re sure Her Majesty has greater concerns than motor vehicle traffic in The Villages [the location of the rally] in Florida."