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