British far right activists are raising money for imprisoned white supremacists who were active in Scotland, using a controversial US Christian crowdfunding platform that allows neo-Nazis to fundraise.
GiveSendGo was founded in 2014 to fundraise “for missionary trips, medical expenses for needy families, and other charitable causes”. But the American crowdfunder has been condemned for facilitating far-right actors banned from other platforms.
The Ferret analysed more than 6,000 projects listed on GiveSendGo in June and July and identified 96 UK campaigns. We found there are campaigns on the platform for white supremacists, rapists, murderers, conspiracy theorists and far-right influencers. Together these campaigns have raised around £180,000.
They include campaigns for white supremacists James Costello and Sam Melia, who are both serving prison sentences for inciting racial hatred.
Commenting on our findings, the Scottish Greens urged GiveSendGo to urgently “look at what its platform is being used for” while an academic claimed these campaigns “provide an opportunity for foreign supporters and sympathisers to fund extremist activities”.
Costello and Melia, both from England, attended anti-asylum seeker protests in Erskine last year organised by the far right group Patriotic Alternative, as reported by The Ferret.
Melia – once linked to the banned neo-Nazi terror group, National Action – was jailed for two years in March after being found guilty of inciting racial hatred, with the judge branding him an “antisemite” with “Nazi sympathies”.
He was the Yorkshire organiser for Patriotic Alternative, and head of the Hundred-Handers, an anonymous group responsible for posting racist stickers. The prosecution said these were key signs evidencing Melia’s ideology and highlighted his desire to spread his racist views in a deliberate manner.
Following a search of Melia’s home, police discovered a book by Oswald Moseley, who founded the British Union of Fascists, a poster of Adolf Hitler and a Nazi emblem. On Telegram, where Hundred-Handers had 3,500 followers, Melia used racist slurs about black, Asian and Jewish people, the court was told.
The campaign for Melia was created by “Mark Collett”, the name of Patriotic Alternative’s controversial leader. It had raised £67,308 at time of writing.
James Costello is a former member of Patriotic Alternative. He called himself the “Reverend” and was a leading figure in a white supremacist group called Creativity Movement. He was jailed last November for five years for racist offences including a “call to arms against black and Jewish people”.
As part of the case against Costello, the Crown Prosecution Service used evidence to show his connections with convicted terrorists, including National Action member Jack Renshaw, who was jailed for life in 2019 for planning to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper.
Last February, The Ferret revealed Costello had travelled to Scotland to attend protests in Erskine against asylum seekers being housed in a local hotel. We later reported he was present at a riot outside a hotel accommodating asylum seekers in Merseyside.
At time of writing, £3,379 has been raised for Costello on GiveSendGo, where he is described as a “political prisoner”. The fundraising campaign was created by a “Samuel Melia”, who, the site says, will receive the funds for Costello.
“This fundraiser is raising money for James while he’s held as a political prisoner of the tyrannical British state. Money will be sent to his commissary funds at his request while he’s inside and to help him find his feet upon his release,” a statement on the site says.
“Samual Melia” is also named as the creator of a GiveSendGo page which raises money for another far right activist, James Allchurch, who used the pseudonym, Sven Longshanks. Allchurch was convicted of inciting racial hatred last year and jailed for two and half years, as reported by The Ferret.
Allchurch uploaded offensive podcasts to his website. During the trial, the jury were played fifteen episodes of the podcast which included talk about hanging black and Jewish people, as well as playing a song advocating racial segregation.
Another campaign is raising money for Kevin Lane, a convicted hitman who served 20 years for a murder he denies committing. Lane was jailed in 1994 for shooting a man called Robert Magill, in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire.
He has always protested his innocence and published a book in 2020 called Fitted up and Fighting Back, the same year he was returned to prison in connection with a common assault, and later released.
In February, he was returned to prison after an unspecified breach of his licence conditions. The GiveSendGo has so far raised £10,000 for his legal fees.
Other individuals on the site include someone trying to raise money for a group supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory. QAnon is a conspiracy theory that claiming former US president Donald Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media.
GiveSendGo and US far right groups
In 2021 it was reported by The Guardian that a data breach at GiveSendGo revealed millions of dollars had been raised on the site for far-right causes and groups, many of whom are banned from raising funds on other platforms.
They included the Proud Boys, designated as a terrorist group in Canada, many of whose fundraising efforts were directly related to the 6 January attack on the United States Capitol.
Founded in 2016, the Proud Boys is a far-right, anti-immigrant, all-male group with a history of street violence against left-wing opponents.
Maggie Chapman MSP, of the Scottish Greens, said: “These companies need to take a serious and urgent look at what their platforms are being used for. If they are being used to fund hate groups, then they have to ask if that’s really what they want to be known for and what they are doing to stop it.
“We know the dangers of money pouring into far-right extremism and the politics of hate, and we’re seeing the damage it’s doing around the world right now. The UK certainly isn’t insulated from that. We need to ensure the necessary safeguards are in place to prevent it from distorting our democratic processes.”
These crowdfunding campaigns are emblematic of the transnational nature of right-wing extremism.
Professor Candyce Kelshall
Candyce Kelshall, adjunct professor at Buckingham University centre for security and intelligence studies, said: “These crowdfunding campaigns are emblematic of the transnational nature of right-wing extremism. As we saw with the Ottawa Convoy protest, crowdfunding campaigns provide an opportunity for foreign supporters and sympathisers to fund extremist activities from the planning phase all the way to incarceration.
“While right-wing extremist groups previously relied on membership fees and large donations from wealthy sympathisers, this new form of fundraising provides expanded access to large pools of donors. When fundraising is no longer an issue, does the barrier for extremist activities lower? This is the question that policymakers should be asking themselves.”
Patriotic Alternative and GiveSendGo did not respond to requests for a comment. The Ferret was unable to contact the above named prisoners directly.
GiveSendGo is also used for a wide range of legitimate charitable purposes, such as crowdfunding medical bills, aid projects and religious missions.
A statement on the site says: “At the end of the summer of 2020 during the middle of a pandemic, we watched as GiveSendGo was thrust into the political spotlight for allowing a campaign that mainstream media had shut down and was censoring. Unbeknownst to us we had stepped onto a battlefield and had to take a stand.
“After much prayer, discussion, and counsel a decision was made. GiveSendGo was created for such a time as this. Not to take one side or another politically, but in the middle of a divided political culture, we were to be focused on the very reason we started GiveSendGo, to share the hope of Jesus through crowdfunding to everyone who comes to our platform.”
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Featured photo is of Costello standing in front of a Patriotic Alternative banner at an anti-asylum seeker protest in Erskine this year.
This story was updated at 12.38 on 19 August 2024 to clarify that Candyce Kelshall is adjunct professor at Buckingham University centre for security and intelligence studies.
