Intelligence and Security Committee Report: Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism/Tackling Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism Financing

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Intelligence and Security Committee Report: Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism (2022)
the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament
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4595683Intelligence and Security Committee Report: Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism2022the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

​TACKLING EXTREME RIGHT-WING TERRORISM FINANCING

253. While ideology is the driver of the ERWT threat, the need to determine how it is being financed, and find effective ways to disrupt these funding mechanisms, is crucial.

254. The Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT) is based in the National Crime Agency and led by the National Economic Crime Centre. Within the JMLIT, the Terrorist Finance Public-Private Threat Group (TF PPTG) is led by Homeland Security Group and brings together over 25 financial institutions, regulators, payment services, civil society, HMG and law enforcement partners to facilitate the exchange of terrorist finance information.[1]

255. In December 2018, the TFEG published an alert on Domestic Extremism Signs and Symbols, with a focus on Far-Right extremism.[2] This alert—one of the aims of which was to raise awareness of this particular threat—was made available to over 300 financial institutions and issued in conjunction with the Counter Terror Policing (CTP) National Operations Centre (NOC):

Whilst holding extremist views is not a criminal offence in itself, the alert flags up individuals or groups that may adhere to extreme ideologies. Individuals and groups that adhere to or promote these views are assessed to be at increased risk of offending, either in the form of terrorist offences, politically-motivated violence, or hate crimes. The aim is that these indicators will act as a prompt to these financial institutions and help them make a more informed assessment as to whether the Suspicious Activity Reporting[3] threshold has been reached in a particular transaction of activity.[4]

256. However, Tom Keatinge of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) expressed a degree of scepticism regarding this initiative, explaining to the Committee that:

By feeding information to banks, law enforcement in particular—and the government more widely in general—it is arguably outsourcing the tackling of extreme right financing to the private sector, taking advantage of the banking sectors' sensitivity to 'reputational risk' which means they are likely to take action against customers (as provided for in their terms and conditions) at a much lower threshold [than] the government is required to meet in order to proscribe a group or designate an individual as "terrorist".[5]

​257. In addition to JMLIT, the National Terrorism Financial Investigations Unit (NTFIU) works with financial institutions and partners, such as PayPal, to counter the ERWT threat ***.[6]

'Britain First'

An Electoral Commission investigation was undertaken into British fascist group 'Britain First' and the finances of its senior leaders, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen. ***.

In July 2019, Britain First was fined £44,200 after the Electoral Commission identified a number of offences:

  • £11,000 for failing to keep accurate financial records of transactions in 2016;
  • £7,700 for failing to file any quarterly donation reports in 2016, totalling £200,000 of undeclared donations;
  • £5,500 for not having its 2016 accounts professionally audited; and
  • £20,000—the maximum possible—for failing to provide information sought by the Commission.

258. Tom Keatinge questioned the appropriateness of the Government's approach, observing that the responses to terrorist funding have been designed to combat a threat that is group-based and jihadi-focused. By contrast, Extreme Right-Wing (XRW) sources of funding are:

Generally similar to the typical sources drawn upon by other lone and small cell actors: legitimate earnings, government benefits, petty crime and fraud. Online calls for donations are also common as a fundraising tool; and crowd-funding and social media are popular tools. Some variations exist too, for example fundraising via the sale of merchandise/group related paraphernalia, promoting exclusive online material behind paywalls and the holding of music concerts. Membership fees or 'tithes' are also paid to some groups to help defray their running costs—some groups reportedly charge an application fee.[7]

259. When we questioned Homeland Security Group about this discrepancy, they agreed that there is a slight difference between Islamist and ERWT funding—HMG have developed the strategy and tools around the Islamist terrorist threat and, therefore, because of the "different network nature", the way HMG applies those tools in the ERWT space is likely to be a "less traditional usage of being able to track funding, because often this is very small amounts of money for very low sophistication type attack".[8]

260. CTP agreed, observing that they do not see the "kind of money flows that they have seen in the past in the Islamist space", putting this down to ERWT being "dominated by self-initiating terrorists who require very little financing to actually commit an offence".[9] This was borne out by the Home Secretary who confirmed that, with regard to the Islamist terror threat, "you could find a network that is, you know, hundreds of people around the world. ​On the Right-Wing side you find it's just several purchasers from Amazon and that's about it or, you know, perhaps associations with one or two other people or just, you know, use of PayPal."[10]

R. The Government will need a new approach to tackle the financing of Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism (ERWT). It is one thing to take an agnostic approach and use shared methodology in assessing the Islamist terror threat and ERWT, however when it comes to the financing of this activity the reality is that the two are very different. Moreover, whilst it would appear that at present the financing of ERWT is low level and ad hoc, the reality is that this could change rapidly as the threat evolves.

  1. ↑ Law enforcement can also request tactical information through JMLIT's vetted Banking and Insurance Sector Operations Groups (BSOG/ISOG). Similarly, Law Enforcement Agencies may make use of The Crime and Courts Act 2013 S.7 legal gateway, allowing organisations to disclose information to the National Crime Agency.
  2. ↑ Numbers that have particular significance include '88' (representing the eighth letter of the alphabet: 'HH, Heil Hitler) and '1683' (the date of the Battle of Vienna, viewed by the Extreme Right as marking the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and inscribed on the weapons used by Brenton Tarrant in the Christchurch shootings of March 2019).
  3. ↑ Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are filed by financial organisations with the UK Financial Intelligence Unit at the National Crime Agency.
  4. ↑ Written evidence - Home office, 31 January 2020.
  5. ↑ Written evidence - Tom Keatinge, 'The financing of the Extreme Right Wing', 4 November 2020.
  6. ↑ Written evidence - CTP, 31 January 2020.
  7. ↑ Written evidence - Tom Keatinge, 'The financing of the Extreme Right Wing', 4 November 2020.
  8. ↑ Oral evidence - Home Office, 29 April 2021.
  9. ↑ Oral evidence - CTP, 29 April 2021.
  10. ↑ Oral evidence - Home Secretary, 20 May 2021.
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