Revealed: the hidden global network behind Tommy Robinson
Guardian investigation shows how cash, legal support and millions of tweets underpin anti-Islam activist - but Facebook removes his donate button
Josh Halliday, Lois Beckett in San Francisco and Caelainn Barr
Fri 7 Dec 2018 16.00 GMT
The British far-right activist Tommy Robinson is receiving financial, political and moral support from a broad array of non-British groups and individuals, including US thinktanks, rightwing Australians and Russian trolls, a Guardian investigation has discovered.
Robinson, an anti-Islam campaigner who is leading a Brexit betrayal march in London on Sunday, has received funding from a US tech billionaire and a thinktank based in Philadelphia.
Two other US thinktanks, part-funded by some of the biggest names in rightwing funding, have published a succession of articles in support of Robinson, who has become a cause célèbre among the American far right since he was jailed in May for two months.
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The investigation has established that:
A Philadelphia-based thinktank, the Middle East Forum (MEF), acknowledges it has spent about $60,000 (£47,000) on Robinsons legal fees and demonstrations staged in London earlier this year. A senior MEF executive has been closely involved in preparations for this weekends march, though the thinktank said she was there in a personal capacity.
A US tech billionaire, Robert Shillman, financed a fellowship that helped pay for Robinson to be employed in 2017 by a rightwing Canadian media website, the Rebel Media, on a salary of about £5,000 a month.
A small Australian rightwing group, Australian Liberty Alliance, says it has helped fund Robinson, but did not disclose how much.
A New York City-based thinktank, the Gatestone Institute, has published a succession of articles supporting Robinsons cause.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC), a California-based thinktank that describes itself as a school for political warfare, has published a series of pieces defending Robinson, and has lobbied for him to address US politicians.
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