Westminster Accounts: Baroness Cox forced to declare financial interests after leak reveals links to anti-Islam activists
A controversial member of the House of Lords has been forced to declare financial interests following a huge leak of documents that also revealed her links to prominent anti-Islam activists.
Baroness Cox said her failure to register support from the not-for-profit company Equal and Free Limited – which was used to pay for her parliamentary researcher – was an “oversight”.
The crossbench peer also failed to declare that she was an unpaid director of the company.
Minutes of meetings obtained by the anti-racism campaign group Hope not Hate and shared with Sky News reveal that Equal and Free Limited has received funding from an American organisation run by two evangelical philanthropists.
Based in Los Angeles, Fieldstead and Company handles the donations of Howard Ahmanson Jr and his wife Roberta Ahmanson, and focuses support on “religious liberty issues” as well as art, culture and humanitarian relief work.
In a 2011 interview with Christianity Today, Mrs Ahmanson said: “We are probably the single largest supporter of the intelligent design movement, and have been since the beginning.”
Intelligent design argues that aspects of life are best explained by the involvement of a higher being rather than evolution.
The couple has also been linked to orthodox Christian groups and political campaigns against same-sex marriage.
While parliamentary rules require peers to disclose support received from outside organisations, they are not required to detail where funding originated from initially.
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‘Oversight’ corrected quickly
Jess Garland, head of policy at the Electoral Reform Society – which campaigns for an elected House of Lords – says the structure of the chamber can work against good transparency.
“They are encouraged to have outside interests and outside expertise, but this creates a real grey area when it comes to lobbying – who’s funding these interests and where’s the money coming from?” said Ms Garland.
Baroness Cox says she corrected her register of interests as soon as the “oversight” was brought to her attention.
A spokesman for the House of Lords said there was a “robust code of conduct” but this had “no locus over how companies or other organisations providing financial or research support to members generate their income”.
Fieldstead and Company has been approached for comment and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on its part.
Among the documents leaked to Hope not Hate are minutes of regular meetings that have been convened by Baroness Cox on the parliamentary estate and attended by prominent and often controversial critics of Islam.
The documents show that non-affiliated peer Lord Pearson was also present at many of the meetings, which began in 2013 under the name “The New Issues Group” and have continued to take place in 2023.
Baroness Cox and Lord Pearson provoked controversy in 2010 when they brought the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders to the UK.
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Baroness Cox brought controversial far-right politician Geert Wilders to the UK in 2010
Controversial meetings
Minutes for a 2015 meeting show a memo written by UKIP activist and group member Magnus Nielsen that describes Islam as having “hostile intentions to everyone who is not Muslim”.
The minutes go on to state that the West is in an “at present… ideological war” with Islam and predicts a “bloody mess” in the future.
Minutes from November 2013 state that one meeting attendee – the activist Anne Marie Waters – was asked if she would help draft a parliamentary question for Baroness Cox regarding a film about free speech.
Waters went on to set up Sharia Watch UK, a group that in 2015 tried to stage a “Muhammad cartoons” exhibition in London, and was later involved in anti-Islam Pegida UK alongside English Defence League (EDL) founder Tommy Robinson.
The documents also show that another group member, Alan Craig, was taken to a meeting with a government minister by Baroness Cox.
Mr Craig provoked controversy in 2018 after claiming in a UKIP conference speech that a “holocaust of our children” was being orchestrated by groups of men from Muslim backgrounds.
The leaked documents state that Equal and Free Limited was set up as a “channel” behind a private member’s bill put forward by Baroness Cox that is focused on equality in Muslim arbitration tribunals.
Baroness Cox told Sky News the New Issues Group “is a meeting of people who support the aims” of her private member’s bill, which would “provide protection for Muslim women whose sharia marriages are not legally registered”.
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The peer added that she has “strong support from Muslim women, including the Muslim Women’s Advisory Group”.
Nick Lowles, chief executive of Hope not Hate – the organisation that obtained the documents – said they appear to show the group is not just concerned about radical and political Islam.
“This group views Islam per se as a danger to the West. They view Islam as in conflict with Western culture and Western civilisation,” said Mr Lowles.
Questions about US funding
Minutes from a meeting attended by Baroness Cox in 2014 state that “money has come in from USA mainly to pay for Muslim women coming to give evidence… $40,000 from Fieldstead & Company; and £8,000 has been promised from another source”.
The organisation has been reported to have links to a 2008 campaign in California to ban same-sex marriage and the American Anglican Council – an orthodox Christian group.
Its founder Howard Ahmanson Jr is the son of the late multi-millionaire and businessman Howard Ahmanson Sr.
He sits on the board of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle organisation that promotes intelligent design and critiques Darwin’s theory of evolution.
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MPs’ donations ‘need a complete overhaul’
Roberta Ahmanson is heavily involved with Fieldstead and Company. On the organisation’s website, she describes herself as a “writer and explorer focused on discovering the nature of reality, the role of religion, and the meaning of history and the arts”.
The California-based organisation has also funded numerous cultural causes including the National Gallery in London.
A recently published document sent to Sky News by Baroness Cox states that Equal and Free “remain sincerely grateful for Fieldstead and Company’s support”.
The peer declined to clarify how much money her firm has received from the Los Angeles organisation. However, parliamentary records show that Equal and Free began funding a House of Lords researcher in 2014.
Two other members of the Lords are also known to have contributed funding to Equal and Free Limited.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
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Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
World
UN’s Antonio Guterres condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
The leaders of the UK, France and Canada are “on the wrong side of humanity and (…) history”, he said, after they threatened “concrete action” against Israel this week if it continues its “egregious” military operations in Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
A woman has been arrested after 12 people were reportedly injured in a stabbing at Hamburg’s central train station in Germany.
An attacker armed with a knife targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14, according to police.
They added that the suspect was a 39-year-old woman.
Police at the scene. Pic: AP
Officers said they “believe she acted alone” and investigations into the stabbing are continuing.
There was no immediate information on a possible motive.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
The attack happened shortly after 6pm local time (5pm UK time) on Friday in front of a waiting train, regional public broadcaster NDR reported.
A high-speed ICE train with its doors open could be seen at the platform after the incident.
Railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by what had happened.
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Four tracks at the station were closed in the evening, and some long-distance trains were delayed or diverted.
Hamburg is Germany‘s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
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