257. In addition to JMLIT, the National Terrorism Financial Investigations Unit (NTFIU) works with financial institutions and partners, such as PayPal, to counter the ERWT threat ***.[1]
'Britain First'
An Electoral Commission investigation was undertaken into British fascist group 'Britain First' and the finances of its senior leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen. ***.
In July 2019, Britain First was fined £44,200 after the Electoral Commission identified a number of offences:
- £11,000 for failing to keep accurate financial records of transactions in 2016;
- £7,700 for failing to file any quarterly donation reports in 2016, totalling £200,000 of undeclared donations;
- £5,500 for not having its 2016 accounts professionally audited; and
- £20,000—the maximum possible—for failing to provide information sought by the Commission.
258. Tom Keatinge questioned the appropriateness of the Government's approach, observing that the responses to terrorist funding have been designed to combat a threat that is group-based and jihadi-focused. By contrast, Extreme Right-Wing (XRW) sources of funding are:
Generally similar to the typical sources drawn upon by other lone and small cell actors: legitimate earnings, government benefits, petty crime and fraud. Online calls for donations are also common as a fundraising tool; and crowd-funding and social media are popular tools. Some variations exist too, for example fundraising via the sale of merchandise/group related paraphernalia, promoting exclusive online material behind paywalls and the holding of music concerts. Membership fees or 'tithes' are also paid to some groups to help defray their running costs—some groups reportedly charge an application fee.[2]
259. When we questioned Homeland Security Group about this discrepancy, they agreed that there is a slight difference between Islamist and ERWT funding—HMG have developed the strategy and tools around the Islamist terrorist threat and, therefore, because of the "different network nature", the way HMG applies those tools in the ERWT space is likely to be a "less traditional usage of being able to track funding, because often this is very small amounts of money for very low sophistication type attack".[3]
260. CTP agreed, observing that they do not see the "kind of money flows that they have seen in the past in the Islamist space", putting this down to ERWT being "dominated by self-initiating terrorists who require very little financing to actually commit an offence".[4] This was borne out by the Home Secretary who confirmed that, with regard to the Islamist terror threat, "you could find a network that is, you know, hundreds of people around the world.
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