Liam Bates: Make Sealand Great Again

“We’ve lived this life. My dad has. And my grandfather before him. We’re sure of where we want to take it. It’s not just dreams. It’s grounded in reality. We’ve got a plan of how to get there. Now we just need to go and do it.”

Timothy Allen speaks with Prince Liam Bates, third generation custodian of the Principality of Sealand – the self-declared sovereign micronation built on a WWII anti-aircraft fort in the North Sea, approximately seven miles off the coast of England. Sealand was founded in 1967 by Liam’s grandfather, Paddy Roy Bates, a WWII veteran and pirate radio operator who occupied the abandoned platform after the BBC’s monopoly on broadcasting left almost no airtime for rock and pop music. A British court subsequently ruled it had no jurisdiction over the fort, which sat outside the UK’s three-nautical-mile territorial limit at the time.

This is a conversation about what it means to inherit a sovereign territory that three generations of your family have built, defended, and funded out of their own pockets – and what happens when the third generation decides to stop maintaining and start expanding.

Liam gives the full account of the 1978 coup – the most dramatic episode in Sealand’s history. A consortium of German businessmen lured Roy and his wife to Austria under the pretence of signing a development deal, then launched a helicopter assault on the platform while Liam’s father Michael was alone on it. Michael was kidnapped, deprived of food and water, and eventually released onto a trawler back to the Netherlands. The family’s response was immediate: Roy and Michael armed themselves with pistols and sawn-off shotguns, enlisted a James Bond stunt pilot, flew out at dawn, abseiled onto the platform, and took it back by force. They tried the ringleader – who held a Sealand passport – for treason and imprisoned him in the North Tower for three months. Germany lobbied the UK to intervene. The UK said it had no jurisdiction. Germany sent a diplomat directly to Sealand to negotiate the prisoner’s release – which the Bates family has always cited as de facto diplomatic recognition.

On the legal situation today, Liam explains that the UK subsequently extended its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, technically bringing Sealand within British boundaries. However, the Bates family argues that their sovereignty claim predates the extension and that under international law, a median line is drawn between overlapping claims – you cannot retroactively claim existing sovereign territory simply by extending your waters. No legal challenge has been brought since the extension. Declassified government papers reveal the UK’s deliberate strategy has been non-engagement: wait for the Bates family to give up and disappear.

The conversation then turns to what comes next, which is significantly more ambitious than anything previously attempted. Liam and his brother James are working with Water Studio, a Dutch marine engineering firm, on designs for two new towers to be piled into the sandbank beneath the existing structure – capable of housing around 50 people initially. The longer-term vision is full land reclamation: sheet piling a perimeter and backfilling to create an actual island. The original fort would be preserved within the new development as a historical centrepiece. Liam draws the comparison to Venice – a sovereign republic for nearly a thousand years, built entirely on driven piles in a lagoon.

On the digital side, Sealand has built a global community of over 1.5 million social media followers and e-citizens in 124 countries. Noble title sales and e-citizenship subscriptions now fund operations – a transition from the family shellfish export business that sustained Sealand for decades. The next major milestone is the launch of the Sealand DAO, which will distribute governance decisions to the community while avoiding the voter fatigue that has killed other DAO projects. Beyond governance, the DAO opens the door to company incorporation, arbitration services, and a broader digital economy built on Sealand’s sovereign claim.

Liam is direct about what he sees as Sealand’s advantage over purely digital network state projects: 58 years of continuous sovereign history and a physical territory that three generations have defended with their lives. That generates a trust that no new crypto project can replicate. And unlike charter cities operating under host-country frameworks, Sealand doesn’t ask anyone’s permission. As Liam puts it: “That’s the only way you can drive change. You can’t ask to do anything. The world’s regulated. They tell you no. So you just have to go and do it.”

TIMESTAMPS (Audio version only. Includes Timothy’s introduction):

• 0:00:29 – Introduction to episode

• 0:08:19 – Start of conversation

• 0:10:45 – Life on Sealand: tough conditions and the spirit of adventure

• 0:16:08 – Paddy Roy Bates’s ideology and early plans to make Sealand profitable

• 0:21:30 – UK territorial waters, legal precedent, and the pistol-shot court case

• 0:26:53 – Sealand eCitizenship, 1.5 million followers, and plans for a DAO

• 0:32:15 – Reclaiming land, territorial waters, and international maritime law parallels

• 0:37:38 – Pirate radio origins: Radio Essex, the BBC monopoly, and information freedom

• 0:43:00 – Growing up with sovereignty: school, conformity, and a different mindset

• 0:48:23 – The family fishing business and funding Sealand for decades

• 0:53:45 – Network states, opt-in communities, and Sealand’s sovereign advantage

• 0:59:08 – Just doing it: incorporating in Sealand without asking permission

• 1:04:30 – The 1978 coup d’état: helicopter raid, treason trial, and German diplomacy

• 1:09:53 – Future vision: twin towers, reclaimed land, and a permanent island community

• 1:15:15 – Closing remarks and how to support the show