Great British National Protest organiser Richard Donaldson has announced that he is closing down the group’s online fundraisers. But is he just putting a brave face on something that was forced on him?
In his latest online post, Donaldson tells us that his GoFundMe account is being shut down and his Buy Me A Coffee account will not be taking any new donors. He says this is “Because we’ve reached our goal – and for what we set out to achieve, we now have enough funds”.
“It simply wouldn’t feel right to continue accepting donations when we’ve already hit the target.”
Now, this is all a bit odd.
National strike
Firstly, campaign groups never really stop needing new money, especially one which is boasting that in the near future he will be hooking up with some of “the biggest names in activism” to organise a national strike and shut down the country.
“I have now emailed, inboxed, whatsapped and called everyone I can think of, from the most famous activists and politicians in the country, to celebrities, social media influencers and even charities to ask that they step up and unite with the people so that we can all team up and push this, together.
“I will keep you all updated on how I get on (some very big names have already come back to me)”.
They are having an online meeting next week. He says…
Humiliating failure
Now, bringing the country to a halt, even with his fantasy friends, is not really the sort of thing you can do on the £15k he told us only last week was left in his accounts, out of the total £35k which he had raised from donations.
And let’s not forget that this is not the first time he’s tried a strike – indeed, his group was originally called the Great British National Strike and changed its name when its first attempt to call one was, predictably, an utter, humiliating failure.
But secondly, it was only last week that he told us that his GoFundMe account had actually been frozen while the many complaints lodged against it were investigated.
So, did he appeal and get the account unfrozen, only to close it down the next day?
Bowing to the inevitable
Or was it that he just bowed to the inevitable – that the account was never going to be reopened – and tried to put the best face on it by announcing he was shutting it down himself?
Ditto, with the Buy Me A Coffee account which he said had just been unfrozen after an investigation. But was it unfrozen with a ban on new subscriptions? He doesn’t tell us.
Whatever the case, it’s a bizarre thing to do at precisely the moment that he is planning – in his dreams at least – to shut down the entire country and force a general election.
More curious
Now, even more curiously, the post where Donaldson last week talked us through where the money had gone, and where he launched fresh terrorism allegations against other anti-migrant campaigners, appears to have disappeared from X.
We are sure this is just an oversight on someone’s part so, as a public service, we are reproducing it here:
More interestingly, Donaldson attended the launch of Ben Habib’s Advance UK in Newcastle recently, where he was warmly welcomed by the party leader.
And Donaldson is now boosting UKIP Leader Nick Tenconi’s demonstration in Whitechapel at the end of the month. Two weeks ago he was calling on all his supporters to get to UKIP’s UKIP’s march in Newcastle.
