https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/07/tommy-robinson-global-support-brexit-marchRevealed: 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 11.00 EST
Last modified on Sat 8 Dec 2018 08.20 EST
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Tommy Robinson
Tommy Robinson says he has raised several hundred thousand pounds via online donations. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters
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.
His imprisonment on contempt of court charges prompted a vigorous international Twitter campaign, with 2.2m tweets being posted using the hashtag #freetommy between May and October.
