Black Lives Matter is a principle, not an organisation. Lots of groups have tried to adopt the name to claim they're the 'real' BLM and speak for the campaign as a whole. Who is behind this *verified* twitter account with no named leaders and a million pounds in their GoFundMe? https://twitter.com/ukblm/status/1277177624884850689

BLM UK is not a registered charity. There are a few registered companies using the words "Black Lives Matter", several of which were registered in the last couple of weeks, but I don't know if any of them are the same "BLM UK".

BLM UK has a Twitter account, an Instagram and a GoFundMe. No Website of its own, no email address. But their social media accounts are 'verified' by Twitter and IG/Facebook.

There are other organisations called BLM UK. This one has a website http://blacklivesmatteruk.com/  and Twitter @blacklivesmatUK, but somehow Twitter and Facebook decided this one is fake and the other one is 'real'. I don't know why.

In just 3 weeks, BLM UK has raised more than a million pounds via a GoFundMe campaign. The people who donated that money have no idea who they were giving it to. Astonishing, really.

One of the first public acts in the name of BLM UK was back in 2016, when they occupied London City Airport, citing the "impact of air pollution on black people". https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/06/black-lives-matter-protesters-occupy-london-city-airport-runway

One of the activists arrested at that 2016 protest was... Ewa Jasiewicz, best known for her widely-condemned vandalism of the Warsaw Ghetto.

BLM UK has a pretty wide platform. They want to dismantle capitalism, cut carbon... it's a bit like a classic Trot front group which uses a popular campaign issue to pull people into a broader political position.

I hope that BLM UK's antisemitic claim that "mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism" was a simple mistake, but frankly that's unlikely. It's a politically sophisticated campaign, run by politically sophisticated people,

Don't be too surprised if some of that million quid raised by BLM UK ends up funding campaigns to boycott Zionists or shut down Israeli cultural events.

Final point: Don't let one crappy organisation ruin a just, important organising and campaigning principle. Black lives matter.