31 Facts About Raheem Kassam

Raheem J Kassam was born on 1 August 1986 and is a British political activist, former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News London, and former chief adviser to former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage.

Raheem Kassam has been described as far-right and right-wing by several media publications.

Raheem Kassam is the former global editor-in-chief of Human Events and most recently became the editor-in-chief of The National Pulse.

Raheem Kassam was born in the Hammersmith Hospital in White City, West London.

Raheem Kassam's parents were Tanzanian Muslim immigrants of Indian origin from Hillingdon.

Raheem Kassam was raised an Ismaili Shia Muslim but wrote in 2016 that he had not been a practising Muslim for over a decade.

Raheem Kassam was formerly an atheist, stating that Christopher Hitchens' rejection of religious faith inspired him.

Raheem Kassam was educated at Bishopshalt School, a state comprehensive school in Uxbridge and the independent St Helen's College, Hillingdon, and then studied politics at the University of Westminster.

Raheem Kassam briefly worked for the American financial services firm Lehman Brothers before it went bankrupt in 2008.

Raheem Kassam was a national executive board member of the youth movement Conservative Future and director of campus anti-extremism group Student Rights, and campaigned against the London School of Economics for accepting money from Gaddafi's Libya; the university's director Howard Davies would later resign when new revelations revealed the extent of the institution's relationship with the Gaddafi regime.

Raheem Kassam has called his former university, the University of Westminster, a "hotbed of radical Islam", citing the fact that Jihadi John was at his campus as evidence.

In 2011, Raheem Kassam was employed as campaigns director at the Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative foreign policy think-tank.

Raheem Kassam managed electoral campaigns in the UK and US, and was Executive Editor of The Commentator blogging platform, but left the organisation after falling out with the founding editor, Robin Shepherd, who described Raheem Kassam as "a danger to British democracy, and the rule of law".

Raheem Kassam has been a member of conservative think tanks such as the Bow Group, the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society, the Gatestone Institute and the Middle East Forum, and was involved in an attempted foundation of the UK version of the Tea Party movement.

Raheem Kassam was a supporter of the controversial Young Britons' Foundation, described by its founder as a "conservative madrasa" which later shut down due to allegations of misconduct against director Mark Clarke.

In June 2018, Raheem Kassam helped organise and held a speech at a 10,000-people strong "Free Tommy" demonstration in London in support of counter-jihad activist Tommy Robinson.

In 2018, Raheem Kassam joined the Institut des sciences sociales, economiques et politiques, founded by politicians in the far-right National Front Marion Marechal-Le Pen and Thibaut Monnier, in Lyon, France.

In July 2019, the Australian Labor Party called for Raheem Kassam to be banned from entering the country.

In October 2019, Raheem Kassam began co-hosting War Room: Impeachment, a daily radio show and podcast with Steve Bannon, to nudge the White House and its allies into taking a more focused and aggressive posture to counteract the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.

Raheem Kassam's politics have frequently been described as far-right by mainstream commentators and sources.

Raheem Kassam has been described by media and academic sources as a figure in the alt-right.

When running for leader in 2016, Raheem Kassam supported the repeal of a ban on former members of the National Front and British National Party white nationalist parties from joining UKIP.

Raheem Kassam has been described as a part of the counter-jihad movement.

Raheem Kassam labelled his movement as Faragist and quipped that he was the "Faragest of the Faragists".

Raheem Kassam gained the personal support of Arron Banks, the principal funder of UKIP.

Raheem Kassam "suspended", or withdrew, from the leadership contest on 31 October 2016, a few hours before nominations closed.

In January 2018, Raheem Kassam received media coverage for stating during a Sky News interview that London had become "a shithole" under Mayor Sadiq Khan, intentionally mirroring similar alleged comments US President Trump made on immigration shortly before.

In December 2019, Raheem Kassam became editor-in-chief of The National Pulse, an American news website on the political right.

Raheem Kassam recommended Nigel Farage to remove party chair Zia Yusuf in order to end in-fighting between Farage and one of his colleagues Rupert Lowe.

On 14 August 2017, Raheem Kassam published his book No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You with Nigel Farage writing the foreword to the book.

On 19 April 2018, Raheem Kassam self-published Enoch Was Right: 'Rivers of Blood' 50 Years On, in which he argues that the vision of politician Enoch Powell's anti-immigration Rivers of Blood speech has been realised.