The group that created a mural of Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson and Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump kissing are linked to a green lobbying organisation that has received EU funding, Breitbart London can reveal.
In what appears to be yet another example of the media failing to report the background of a so-called “viral” story, the BBC, Telegraph, Politico and other mainstream news outlets have failed to mention the EU funding linked to the image.
An “artist collective” calling itself “We Are Europe” claimed responsibility for the mural in Bristol in the United Kingdom which depicts the former mayor of London and the Republican frontrunner locked in a kiss along with the words “Not #infor this?”
Both have been supportive of Britain leaving the European Union.
Spokesman Harriet Kingaby explained the reasoning behind the artwork: “People need to look at this image and think, ‘is this the future I want’?”
But while the group describes itself on its website as a “collective of friends, artists, campaigners, creatives and doers” who say “Europe is us. Not over there. It’s ours to create, not to watch from the sidelines,” the truth may in fact be linked to their EU funding.
The group claims to be “grassroots funded”, but a Breitbart London investigation found that one of the founders of We Are Europe also runs a group that has received funding from the European Commission.
Tom Burke, a self-described environmentalist, is Founding Director of green lobby group E3G. The group’s website says it “works to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy” and describes itself as a “European organisation”.
The most recent figures on the European Commission website show E3G received €20,000 in grants in 2013. It had a total budget of just under two million euros, of which a further €31,500 is believed to come from public subsidy.
And E3G appears to share an office with We Are Europe, both registered to Great Guildford Street,
London, SE1.
Breitbart London has contacted Mr Burke for comment but received no reponse.
The revelation comes after Breitbart London revealed that a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) claiming Britain faces “an extra two years of austerity measures” as a result of a Brexit was funded by an organisation that tried to cover up its European Union funding.
The report was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which has received nearly a quarter of a million pounds in EU funding since 2009.
Breitbart London filed an enquiry in February asking the group how much funding it had received from European institutions. It initially claimed it does not “receive grants we only allocate them”, however a Freedom of Information request showed it had “received £241,006.83 from the European Commission”.