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Reading List — Existing Investigations & Research

Reading List — Existing Investigations & Research

Priority Reads (start here)

Investigations

  • openDemocracy — Dark Money series

    • Turning Point UK funding from US
    • Legatum / GB News connections
    • URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ (search "dark money", "turning point")

  • Byline Times — Follow the Money

    • Various UK political funding investigations
    • URL: https://bylinetimes.com/

  • Bellingcat — Far-right financing

    • Methodology examples, especially on crypto tracing
    • URL: https://www.bellingcat.com/

  • Private Eye — Arron Banks / Leave.EU

    • Electoral Commission investigation coverage
    • Check back issues 2018-2019

  • Channel 4 Dispatches — "Brexit: The Inside Job"

    • Arron Banks, Russian connections
    • Also: various Tommy Robinson investigations

NGO Reports

  • Hope not Hate — State of Hate (annual)

    • Yearly survey of UK far-right groups
    • URL: https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/
    • Key: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 editions

  • Hope not Hate — specific financial investigations

    • Check publications page for targeted reports

  • Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD)

    • Extremism research, some financial analysis
    • URL: https://www.isdglobal.org/

  • Centre for Media Monitoring

    • Media analysis, some funding overlap
    • URL: https://www.centreformediamonitoring.org/

  • Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

    • US-based but covers international networks
    • URL: https://www.adl.org/

Academic Books

  • Matthew Feldman — "Fascism, Contemporary History and Digital Culture"

    • Methodology for researching far-right online

  • Nigel Copsey — various works on BNP and far-right

    • Historical context on funding patterns

  • Hilary Pilkington — "Loud and Proud: Passion and Politics in the EDL"

    • Ethnographic work, insight into grassroots funding

  • Graham Macklin — "Failed Führers" (2020)

    • History of British far-right leaders, some financial context

  • "The International Alt-Right" (edited collection)

    • Transnational funding networks chapter

Academic Articles (search on Google Scholar / JSTOR)

  • Feldman, M. — various on fascist financing
  • Copsey, N. — BNP financial history
  • Busher, J. — English Defence League ethnography
  • Macklin, G. — transnational far-right

Key Journalists / Researchers to Follow

  • Peter Jukes (Byline Times) — far-right investigations
  • Jamie Doward (Guardian) — UK far-right
  • Jason Burke (Guardian) — extremism
  • Peter Geoghegan (openDemocracy) — dark money
  • Adam Bienkov (Byline Times / PoliticsHome)
  • Michael Crick (former Channel 4, independent)
  • Patriot Act blog — OSINT on far-right
  • @PatrioticAltUK (monitoring accounts — careful with bias)

Podcasts / YouTube

  • "The Bunker" (Political Betting) — occasional UK political funding coverage
  • "Novara Media" — left analysis, some funding investigations
  • "Double Down News" — political commentary
  • Patreon-based investigators (check who's doing good financial OSINT)

Methodology Resources

OSINT Financial Investigation

  • Bellingcat — Financial Investigations (online guides)
  • OCCRP — Aleph tutorial (entity search training)
  • GIJN (Global Investigative Journalism Network) — resource guides
  • "Follow the Money: A Digital Guide for Tracking Corruption" — OCCRP/ICFJ

Tools Training

  • Maltego tutorials (network mapping)
  • OpenRefine tutorials (bulk data cleaning)
  • Wayback Machine / archive.today (archiving best practice)

Data Dumps to Acquire

Bulk Downloads (do these first)

  • Electoral Commission — full donation database (CSV)
  • Electoral Commission — loans database
  • Companies House — full data download (available via API or bulk)
  • Charity Commission — full register download
  • ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer — scrape/save relevant 990s
  • GiveSendGo 2022 leak (Unicorn Riot published) — if available, archive carefully

FOI Requests to Submit

  • Electoral Commission — all enforcement actions against far-right parties (2020-2025)
  • Home Office — proscription applications for far-right groups
  • Police forces — arrests under Terrorism Act related to far-right (anonymised)
  • Ofcom — complaints upheld against GB News, TalkTV (financial aspects)

Archive Strategy

Web Archiving

  • Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/ — save every URL you cite
  • archive.today: https://archive.today/ — good for paywalled or JS-heavy sites
  • Local copies: Download PDFs, screenshots of ephemeral content

Naming Convention

  • YYYY-MM-DD_source-title.ext
  • Example: 2026-06-14_electoral-commission-reform-uk-donations.csv

Storage

  • Primary: This folder (~/Desktop/Politics/funding-research/)
  • Create archive/ subdirectory for saved pages
  • Create data/ subdirectory for bulk downloads
  • Consider encrypted backup for sensitive research

To Be Found (open questions)

  • Comprehensive list of GB News investors
  • Full financial picture of Legatum's UK political investments
  • Complete mapping of TPUSA → TPUK funding
  • Tommy Robinson's total income sources (post-RT)
  • Patriotic Alternative's business model (merch revenue?)
  • Homeland's CIC filings (what's the declared activity?)
  • GiveSendGo leak analysis for UK recipients
  • Crypto wallet addresses from major UK far-right Telegram channels
  • Full Arron Banks / Russian meetings timeline
  • Reform UK's major donors 2024-2025 (post-election surge)

Last Updated

  • Date: 2026-06-14
  • Status: Initial reading list, needs expanding as research progresses

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