Raheem Kassam

Raheem Kassam (born 1 August 1986) is a British political activist, former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News London, and former chief advisor to former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage. Kassam formerly contested the party's November 2016 leadership election before dropping out of the race on 31 October 2016. He is currently the global editor-in-chief of Human Events.

Kassam was born in Hammersmith Hospital, London. His parents were Tanzanian immigrants of Gujarati origin from Hillingdon, Greater London. He was raised an Ismaili Muslim, but wrote in 2016 that he had not been a practising Muslim for over a decade. Kassam is an atheist, stating that Christopher Hitchens' rejection of religious faith ("religions are versions of the same untruth") inspired him. Kassam was educated at Bishopshalt School, a state comprehensive school in Uxbridge and St Helen's College, Hillingdon, and then studied Politics at the University of Westminster.

Kassam was a national executive board member of 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. In a 2011 interview, Kassam named his idols as Michael Gove, Margaret Thatcher and Barry Goldwater, and spoke of his admiration for the United States' free markets. He has called his alma mater a "hotbed of radical Islam", citing the fact that Jihadi John was at his campus as evidence.

Kassam managed electoral campaigns in the UK and U.S., and was Executive Editor of The Commentator blogging platform, but left the organisation after falling out with the founding editor, Robin Shepherd. He has been a member of conservative think-tanks such as the Bow Group, the 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. He and James Delingpole set up the London edition of the American conservative news outlet Breitbart News. Kassam left Breitbart in May 2018.

In 2018, Kassam joined the Institut des sciences sociales, économiques et politiques (Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences), founded by National Front politicians Marion Maréchal-Le Pen and Thibaut Monnier, in Lyon, France.

In March 2019, Kassam and lawyer Will Chamberlain purchased Human Events, a conservative American digital-only publication, from Salem Media Group for $300,000. Kassam became Global editor-in-chief of Human Events when it was re-launched on May 1.

Following his period with the Conservative Party, Kassam became a UK Independence Party voter in late 2013, joined the party early in the following year, and soon became Nigel Farage's senior advisor.

Leadership candidate

After the resignation of Diane James as UKIP leader in October 2016, Kassam launched a campaign to become the new leader. On announcing his bid, he stated that he wanted to "stop infighting within UKIP", "address the deep cultural and social divides in this country", and "to become the real opposition and put this feckless Labour Party to bed." His campaign slogan was "Make UKIP great again". In an interview with Evan Davis on the BBC's Newsnight, Kassam announced his intentions to resolve UKIP's "existential crisis" and pledged to increase UKIP's membership to 100,000.

Kassam's activity on social media has attracted negative attention. In June 2016 he posted a tweet (later deleted) suggesting First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon should have her "mouth taped shut. And her legs, so she can't reproduce". After being criticised by the Scottish National Party MP Stewart McDonald on Twitter, Kassam replied that he would not be lectured to by a "National Socialist party". He later apologised. He has tweeted in the past that Suzanne Evans, a candidate in the second 2016 UKIP leadership election, should "fuck off for good", and questioned whether Labour MP Angela Eagle attended a "special needs class".

After Evans said on The Andrew Marr Show that her "far right" and "toxic" rival would take the party away from the interests of ordinary people, Kassam questioned Evans' leadership capabilities and asserted that she had made "smears" against him. Farage repudiated Evans' comments about Kassam shortly afterwards.

At the launch of his leadership campaign, Kassam called for a national referendum on the right of women in the UK to wear the niqāb, claimed then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump does not hold anti-Muslim opinions, and cast doubt on the multiple claims of sexual assault made against Trump. He also labelled his movement as Faragist and quipped that he was the "Faragest of the Faragists". Kassam gained the personal support of Arron Banks, the principal funder of UKIP.

Kassam "suspended", or withdrew, from the leadership contest on 31 October 2016, a few hours before nominations closed. Having concluded that he had only a slight chance of winning, citing insufficient funds, he criticised the media attention he received and was critical of what he claimed was media intimidation of his parents. He also questioned the fairness of a UKIP ballot. "When Times journalists show up at my elderly parents' house, intimidating them, I draw the line," he said.

Later developments

In his October 2016 Newsnight interview, Kassam suggested that Donald Trump would be a better President of the United States than Hillary Clinton. A few days after the result of the American presidential election was announced, Kassam accompanied Farage when the former UKIP-leader was the first British politician to meet President-elect Trump, at Trump Tower.

In January 2018, 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 U.S. President Trump made on immigration shortly before.

On 14 August 2017, Kassam published his book No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near Youwith Nigel Farage writing the foreword to the book. On 19 April 2018, Kassam self-published Enoch Was Right: 'Rivers of Blood' 50 Years On, in which he argues that Enoch Powell's anti-immigration Rivers of Blood speech has been realised.