Funding for populist-right ‘media-political complex’ exceeded £170m in five years, research finds

Handful of billionaires gave huge sums in particular to media organisations that boosted rightwing politicians, says Liam Byrne MP More than £170m was given to MPs, political parties, media organisations and thinktanks aligned with the UK’s populist right over the past five years, new research from the Labour MP Liam Byrne has found. Byrne, a former cabinet minister who chairs parliament’s business committee, said he had identified a “media-political complex” funded largely by a handful of billionaires. He said news organisations, such as GB News, are receiving large amounts of money to fund their broadcasting, while paying rightwing politicians to act as presenters, which in turn amplifies their views. Some of those views are then clipped on social media, which generates more money a click. The research was carried out for Byrne’s new book, Why Populists Are Winning and How to Beat Them, with updated figures showing even greater sums of money have been given in the past year, including £12m to Reform from the crypto investor Christopher Harborne. Byrne said his research “maps for the first time the financial architecture of Britain’s populist right – and found a