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In the six years since its formation, US hard-right group Turning Point has become a fixture on campuses at multiple UK universities.
Using the so-called ‘culture war’ to promote itself as a “grassroots conservative and free speech activist organisation”, TPUK has been the driving force behind a growing network of well-placed political commentators and SpAds dedicated to pushing far-right, Trumpian political views into UK Parliament.
In 2022, it was revealed that a youth group, inspired and educated by TPUK, had secured prominent positions within the Conservative Party with the intent of pushing it further to the Right.
Following the Conservatives’ election defeat, many members of the group jumped ship to Reform, while others took up prominent positions in Tufton Street think-tanks. TPUK’s other protégés regularly appear in the right-wing press, highlighting the organisation’s growing influence on both MPs and those who vote for them.
Their latest offshoot is the Women’s Safety Initiative (WSI).
Founded in April by 23 year-old Jess Gill, social media manager for the Objective Standards Institute and a fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, the WSI appears to be a small organisation created (according to their website) to “expose the dangers of uncontrolled immigration, put women and children first, advocate for victims, and demand real solutions”.
Dig a little deeper, however, and their mission and influence become alarmingly clear.
Talking Heads
In the last four months, WSI have amassed more than 65,000 followers across their social media platforms, their spokeswomen are regular guests on GB News and TalkTV, whilst their posts are shared and supported by MP Rupert Lowe and Conservative Councillor Susan Hall.
The WSI’s leadership includes two Conservative Party candidates, Grace Turner and Charlotte Whitney-Brown, and Lucy Jayne White, a policy specialist at Tufton Street think-tank, the Centre for Migration Control (CMC).
Gill herself is also a member of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance, a US-based Libertarian women’s organisation which is anti-Socialist and pro-Free Market Economy.
Originally a Labour supporter, by 2021, Gill was sharing Instagram videos which showed her campaigning with TPUK. In response to a request for comment, Gill told Byline Times that her “political shift started well before [she] became involved with Turning Point”.
The organisation has a long-standing ideological crusade against the trans community, which has seen them protest Drag Queen Story Hour and falsely claim that children are identifying as cats.
The WSI appears to have started the same way, claiming the Supreme Court’s ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex as a “victory”.
Later posting a call-out to the rest of the “gender critical” community, Gill urged them to “[speak] up about the dangers of mass immigration”.
TPUK’s output has changed in the same way, and their social media channels now share call-outs for hotel protests and promote the work of WSI.
In recent interviews, Gill claimed that almost 25% of sexual assaults were committed by “foreign-born men”. When we asked her how WSI approaches the other 75% of assaults, she wrote that, “WSI’s mission is to protect all women and children, regardless of who the perpetrator is…advocating for tougher sentencing, faster trials, better victim support, and broader cultural change”.
Claiming to have begun studying politics at sixteen, Gill said that by the time she got involved with TPUK, she had “already built a platform and had been speaking publicly about [her] political views”.
TPUK was “simply one of the first places that offered young people on the right a chance to get more politically active”, she said, explaining that they did not shape her views, but provided “a platform to express the views [she] had already formed.”
Gill’s social media platforms before 2021 have been cleansed, but the trajectory of her posts echoes that of TPUK.
‘Foreigner’ Focus
Gill has written that WSI’s focus on crimes committed by “foreign nationals” was “because these cases are often politically uncomfortable and underrepresented in public discourse”.
WSI’s work was, she added, is “about ensuring all victims are heard, especially those who [they believe] have been silenced for political reasons”.
The National Audit on Group Based Child Exploitation found a lack of recorded information on the ethnicity of all perpetrators, but noted “it is likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending”.
WSI are often accused of racism by other social media users, but refute the claims. However, the social media posts of WSI spokeswoman and CMC policy specialist Lucy White add weight to the accusations.
In one post on X, White complained about staff at Heathrow airport “not speaking a word of English” and recommended they be deported. In another, she posted that British-Pakistani MPs advocating for an international airport in Mirpur should “remigrate back to Pakistan and become politicians there.”
In a post about how “British people do not go to Pakistan for our summer holidays, so why on earth would we care about an international airport there”, White suggested that the UK should “keep them out for good & close their borders”.
Despite the fact that 270,000 Brits travel to Pakistan every year, White’s vitriol is at odds with her business practices. Angrily opposed to UK links with Mirpur, she expressed no such reservations about the international airport in Angola when she visited last year with her consultancy company – LJW Strategies.
The purpose of the trip, according to White’s LinkedIn, was to discuss removing cobalt refinery work from China and bringing the “cobalt value-chain” to Africa.
Removing cobalt production from China is also a concern for the Trump administration, which is currently attempting to license seabed mining in the Pacific, contrary to international law.
White’s LinkedIn showed her attending Trump’s inauguration ceremony and posing for pictures with both Nigel Farage and “congressmen from the Critical Minerals Caucus”. Between writing and going to press, this post has now been removed from her profile.
‘Just’ Therapy
The WSI’s most recent fundraising campaign, a charity concert whose proceeds will go to “victims of grooming gangs”, further highlights their links to US anti-woke groups. As per their own marketing literature, the funds will be donated to a company named Just Therapy (JT).
JT is run by writer James Esses, who was expelled from his Masters in Psychotherapy for campaigning against the ban on conversion therapies, although he later received an apology from the training institute.
Esses successfully sued his university and established JT as a home for other ‘gender-critical’ therapists. Among the 75 practitioners listed on their website are key members of anti-woke group Critical Therapy Antidote (CTA).
CTA’s founder, Christine Sefein-Wolk, was previously an advisor for the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, who are key players in Trump’s anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) movement. Esses has also tweeted that “children are safer under Donald Trump than Keir Starmer”.
Trump Backers?
In response to our question about WSI being advocates for Trump, Gill wrote that our suggestion was “simply inaccurate [and] has never been stated by WSI in any form”.
Explaining that she had personally said “Trump served as an anti-establishment figure” which “resonated with people”, Gill added that this occurred when she was “broadly a political commentator” (six months ago) and she now wants to focus solely on women’s safety.
Adding that “WSI is a non-partisan organisation,” Gill wrote that they “do not endorse political parties or politicians”. Instagram posts from last year show Gill supporting Farage and sporting a MAGA hat. Many of WSI’s social media posts are tagged #Conservative and, earlier this month, Gill told a Sky News reporter that she supported Reform because “Nigel Farage is a funny guy – he gives the same vibes as Trump”.
Transparency Questions
Torrin Wilkins, Director of Centre Think Tank, told Byline Times that “Turning Point UK and the Women’s Safety Initiative are part of a broader pattern, one of right-wing groups lacking basic transparency compared to those on the left or in the political centre.”
He added: “This imbalance is not just a question of fairness; it has real consequences. As transparency declines, distrust grows, and that distrust creates fertile ground for political extremism.”
Wilkins explained that what makes “this moment particularly dangerous is that we are importing the politics of fear and division from America”.
The links between these UK-based groups and the American far right “are deeply concerning”, he said, adding that we are “seeing a clear effort to bring Trump-style politics to the UK”.
We must not allow the politics of division that have destabilised American society to take root here. Yet these groups are increasingly succeeding in shoehorning extreme positions into mainstream UK conversations
Torrin Wilkins, Director of Centre Think Tank
Wilkins believes this “growing network exerts a disproportionate influence on UK right-wing policy”.
“Platforms like GB News give airtime to groups like the Women’s Safety Initiative, coverage that becomes more troubling when we consider that GB News is part-funded by the Legatum Group.
“Legatum also backs the Prosperity Institute (formerly the Legatum Institute), a think tank long criticised for its lack of transparency. We are seeing groups funded by dark money reinforce one another’s platforms and sidestep scrutiny.”
“These organisations shape narratives and define political agendas without proper public oversight. Without transparency, we cannot know who is pulling the strings or what vested interests lie behind these campaigns.”
To combat these issues, Wilkins told Byline Times “we need to shed light on the dark money in politics by taking bold steps toward greater transparency”.
“We must not only hold these groups accountable but also resist the import of divisive, Trumpian politics into the UK…If we do not act now, we risk allowing a deeply unaccountable and increasingly extreme movement to redefine the future of British politics.”
Sinead Geoghan, Director of Communications for End Violence Against Women (EVAW), told Bylines Times it is “deeply concerned about the weaponisation of violence against women and girls by the far right, who have long exploited public concerns about sexual violence to further a racist, white supremacist agenda”.
Geoghan noted that EVAW is “increasingly seeing (largely white) women publicly involved in far-right groups”.
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“While racism is undoubtedly a driving force, misinformation online and societal failures are drawing in new supporters en masse, with poorly regulated tech companies profiting from the spread of hateful content,” she explained.
Geoghan pointed out that abuse within the family accounts for almost half of all child sexual abuse offences reported to the police in England and Wales and offenders of ‘group-based child sexual exploitation’ are most commonly white. Black and minoritised women and girls are disproportionately victims of male violence and face considerable barriers to accessing justice and support, she added.
“Yet we continue to see the mainstream media, politicians, and tech platforms conflate the universal issue of male violence with migrant and minoritised communities. These narratives have become worryingly mainstream and used by politicians to enact racist and draconian laws and policies that threaten all our fundamental human rights. “
Sexual violence, Geoghan stated, is not “political fodder, nor does it have a quick fix”.
Katherine Denkinson is a freelance investigative journalist and researcher.