GB News Boss and Fossil Fuel Investor Paul Marshall Donates Huge Sums to Anti-Protest Think Tank That Influenced Government

Hedge-funder and GB News boss Paul Marshall, whose firm holds billions in investments in fossil fuels, donated £890,000 to the right-wing Policy Exchange think tank through a charitable trust under his control, Byline Times can reveal. 

Between 2020 and 2023, Marshall gifted the hefty sum to the group, which is funded by fossil fuel companies and played a key role in drafting legislation introduced by the Conservatives to crack down on climate protestors, through the Sequoia Trust.

Climate news outlet, DeSmog revealed in October 2023 that Marshall, through his hedge fund, Marshall Wace, owns shares worth £1.8 billion in fossil fuel firms, including Chevron, Shell, Equinor, and 109 other companies. 

The latest revelations about Marshall’s donations come amid reports that he is about to be announced as the new owner of the “bible” of the Conservative Party, The Spectator. 

Marshall’s Sequoia Trust describes itself as helping “children/young people”, “other charities or voluntary bodies” and the “general public/mankind”, and makes grants and donations throughout England and Wales. 

Its charity page describes how it “will donate funds for the benefit of a range of charitable purposes as the trustees see fit”. The trustees include Marshall, who is chair, as well as his wife and son. 

The Sequoia Trust has also provided funding for the ‘Alliance for Responsible Citizenship’ – an organisation launched by controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson – to the tune of a million pounds in 2023 alone.  

It is aimed at uniting right-wing voices, describing itself as a response to a “civilisational” moment where the Western world “is plagued by self-doubt and confusion”. 

The group has ties to Legatum, the Dubai-based investment firm which co-owns GB News along with Marshall. 

Marshall and two other directors of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship – Alan McCormick and Mark Stoleson – are also directors of GB News’ parent company, AllPerspectives Ltd, which is part owned by the Legatum Group. 

Jordan Peterson’s ‘Alliance’ hosts a number of speakers infamous for downplaying and ignoring climate change. In a recent speech for the group, Marshall hit out at “elite failure” supposedly “mutating” free-market capitalism. 

Climate ‘Sceptical’ Lobbying

Marshall’s funding for Policy Exchange might raise a few eyebrows, given his extensive fossil fuel investments. 

In 2023, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak admitted that a brief by Policy Exchange “helped us draft” the Government’s crackdown on protests, measures which took effect through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act, and later under Suella Braverman through changes to the Public Order Act. 

The Act targeted at climate change activists, and actions commonly taken by them, such as locking onto objects and slow marching, with campaigners, lawyers, and peers criticising it’s restrictions, dubbing it an “attempt to overthrow democracy”, “draconian”, and “like something out of a dystopian novel”.

Labour has been urged to cut ties with the Conservatives’ anti-protest legislation, but have so far failed to do so, and recently five Just Stop Oil (JSO) supporters were handed unprecedented four and five years sentences under Section 78 of the PCSCA.

Labour has also been pressured by protesters to cut ties with oil-funded think tanks like Policy Exchange, and the groups operating out of Tufton St, with campaigners arguing that they are responsible for fuelling climate denial, racism, and transphobia in public life. 

Policy Exchange has previously published reports stating that the Government should target groups like Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Just Stop Oil.

In a 2022 release, it stated, in reference to JSO, that it is “imperative” that “protestors who repeatedly obstruct the highways and/or damage property are swiftly arrested, convicted and punished”, and in another, dubbed XR “extremist”. A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion told Byline Times that the portrayal of them as “a potential terrorist threat” was “cynical and laughable”.

Policy Exchange has received funding from ExxonMobil, as well as from the US-based donor-advised funds (DAFs), like The Donor’s Trust and National Philanthropic Trust, which allow the flow of ‘dark money’ from anonymous donors to various causes.

These DAFs in turn are known to have received funding from big polluters and industry interests pushing climate change denial, like American billionaire businessman Charles Koch. 

GB News, of which Marshall is a ‘person of significant control’, frequently hosts climate-deniers, and has given more than 35 appearances over the last year to the UK’s leading climate denial think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. 

A Guardian investigation in 2023 found that one in three GB News presenters had cast doubt on climate change; ten of the channel’s 31 hosts. The network has also been previously accused of fuelling baseless conspiracy theories around net zero and climate change.

On one of Neil Oliver’s shows, guest Jasmine Birtles falsely claimed that net zero measures were part of a “depopulation agenda” that aims to kill off half the population. 

Despite this, the regulator Ofcom has refused to investigate the broadcaster for pushing climate conspiracy theories.

The channel has been repeatedly found to have platformed climate deniers during its time on air, and presenters such as Nigel Farage have used their spots to call for a “referendum on net zero”. In 2022, GB News appointed Alan McCormick as its chairman. McCormick is a co-founder of the Legatum Institute, which has received money from the Koch climate-denial network, and he has spent years pushing climate denial.

Marshall is also the founder of UnHerd, which has published articles making claims such as “climate change is no catastrophe”, and “the great climate change fallacy”.

Earlier this year, protestors from Extinction Rebellion blockaded the offices of Marshall Wace and GB News, covering the broadcaster’s offices with a black liquid representing oil, in opposition to Marshall’s investment in fossil fuels and the station’s unrepentant climate denialism. The group have asked for an immediate investigation of GB News as an extremist organisation, and called for Marshall Wace to divest from polluting industries. 

A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion told Byline Times: “As a sponsor of both Policy Exchange and GB News, Paul Marshall has emerged as a key nexus between the two organisations: a fifth columnist working against our interests in favour of big oil, and a fomenter of vigilantism towards climate activists.”

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Tangled Web

Marshall’s charity, the Sequoia Trust, has donated more than £20 million to ARK Schools, a multi-academy chain. Marshall used to be the chair and a trustee of ARK, until it was revealed earlier this year that he had liked and shared far-right extremist and conspiratorial content on social media. 

The trust has also funded the Quilliam Foundation – a now defunct “counter-extremism” think tank co-founded by Maajid Nawaz, focused on Islamic extremism. 

The Quilliam Foundation received heavy criticism for promoting policies widely seen as harmful to the Muslim community, like spearheading the ‘conveyor-belt theory’ of radicalisation and for it’s growing association with far right figures, like Tommy Robinson.

The group was, during it’s time in operation, funded by entities linked to allegedly Islamophobic causes, like the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has funded “counter-jihad” organisations like the David Horowitz Freedom Centre. Quilliam also had early ties to the UK Home Office and Security Apparatus. The Foundation received over £30,000 from the Trust before folding, across 2020 and 2021. 

Sequoia has also donated to The Project for Modern Democracy, a think tank which produces research on “efficient Government and good citizenship”, as well as the London School of Economics, evangelical Christian group, the Church Revitalisation Trust, the Education Policy Institute, and philanthropic endeavours.

Marshall is a prominent voice in the Church of England, pushing it towards a more evangelical, US-influenced bent according to insiders. 

The Policy Exchange, Paul Marshall and the Sequoia Trust, and GB News did not respond to requests for comment.