UK pro-Palestine groups reject 'bizarre' China funding allegations

UK campaigners have rejected allegations that China is providing covert support to pro-Palestine marches and activities, calling them part of a wider campaign to delegitimise protests against Israel.

Right-wing and pro-Israel media have over the past week suggested that Beijing is providing secret funding to the protests after The Telegraph published claims made by US lawmakers investigating Code Pink's activities in the UK.

The allegations of Chinese involvement originate from dubious claims that an American businessman accused of having ties to China made payments to a UK-based company linked to the American activist group.

The Home Office is reportedly examining the allegations after several MPs and newspapers demanded an investigation.

The Stop the War Coalition said claims that China has been funding the UK pro-Palestine movement were "bizarre and completely without foundation".

"The pro-Palestine marches organised by the Palestine Coalition in the UK are funded entirely by money donated by the members and affiliates of the six coalition organisations, of which Code Pink, a US-based group, is not one," a spokesperson told The New Arab.

Code Pink has participated in some of the pro-Palestine marches in the UK, which have drawn hundreds of thousands of people to rally against the Gaza genocide and Israel's other wars across the region.

However, it is not among the organisers of the major national rallies in London, which are convened by the six organisations in the Palestine Coalition, which include the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War, and Friends of Al-Aqsa.

The allegations centre around the activities of Neville Roy Singham, who is under investigation by the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee and the US justice department for allegedly supporting "pro-Hamas, pro-communist causes".

Singham, the husband of Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, has been accused for years of promoting China's viewpoint internationally. In 2023 he was the subject of a New York Times investigation that detailed his funding of progressive causes abroad and alleged ties to Chinese state media.

Congressional sources told The Telegraph that they are investigating a series of payments worth £260,000 which they say were made by organisations linked to Singham between 2020 and 2024 to an unidentified British company that is said to be affiliated to Code Pink.

No evidence of Chinese state funding to either Singham or Code Pink was provided, while the nature of the relationship between Singham and the unidentified companies was not disclosed.

A Code Pink spokesperson denied taking money from any foreign government when approached for comment by The New Arab.

"We are not funded by billionaires but by individual donors and through administrative grants for non-profits, and we operate without influence or support from any foreign entity," they said.

The US justice department did not respond to a request for comment.

The claims have fuelled demands for the government to investigate alleged Chinese involvement in the protests, including by MPs from the Labour and Conservative parties.

Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP who recently chaired the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, called for an urgent investigation and for the government to "use the full force of the National Security Act" against groups she said aim to "spread sedition and undermine our democracy".

Stop the War said the allegations were another attempt to discredit the pro-Palestine movement.

"This latest, spurious claim is yet another desperate attempt by the establishment to de-legitimise our movement, at a time when public opinion in Britain is overwhelmingly opposed to Israel's military actions in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon," it told The New Arab.

Since October 2023, right-wing politicians and commentators have portrayed the rallies as antisemitic "hate marches" and pushed for a total ban on pro-Palestine activism.

The Labour government has mounted a crackdown on Palestinian activism, imposing stricter conditions on protests and proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Ismail Patel, chair of Friends of Al-Aqsa, described the accusations as part of a broader "McCarthyist" campaign aimed at ending pro-Palestine protests.

"We have been told these marches were Islamist, then pro-Hamas, then antisemitic, now communist," he told The New Arab.

"The accusation keeps changing because the accusation was never the point. The point is the assumption beneath it: that British Muslims and young people are incapable of independent moral judgement and must be taking instructions from abroad."