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Darren Grimes

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Darren Grimes
Darren Grimes Headshot.jpg
Darren Grimes in 2021
Born (1993-07-22) 22 July 1993 (age 28)
Consett, County Durham, England
NationalityBritish
EducationTanfield School
OccupationDigital manager, Political activist
Websitedarrengrimes.com

Darren Grimes (born 22 July 1993[1]) is a British conservative political commentator and activist. A Liberal Democrat activist before dropping out of university, he then worked for a number of Brexit campaigns. He set up the website Reasoned in May 2020.

Early life

Grimes grew up in a single-parent household in Consett, County Durham, England.[2] He is openly gay.[3] He studied fashion and business studies at the University of Brighton but did not complete his degree.[4]

Activism

While at university, Grimes was an activist for the Liberal Democrats, and worked for then-MP Norman Lamb's unsuccessful 2015 party leadership campaign.[5] In summer 2015 he was interviewed by the BBC about his admiration for former Lib Dem leader Charlie Kennedy, praising Kennedy's vocal pro-EU stance and saying it could have helped the Remain side in the forthcoming referendum: "He believed that in an increasingly globalised world, having Britain in Europe was the only way forward. And I think that's the message the party needs pushing."[6]

However, by the following year Grimes' political stance had changed and he founded the pro-Brexit group BeLeave aimed at younger voters during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum campaign.[7]

Grimes later dropped out of university, and between 2016 and 2018, he worked as a deputy editor for the political website BrexitCentral, founded by Matthew Elliott, the former Vote Leave chief executive.[8] In 2018, he became the digital manager for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a free market think tank.[9]

In 2019, he was amongst those associated with a newly launched right-wing youth organisation called Turning Point UK (TPUK), set up by Conservative Party donor and unsuccessful Brexit Party MEP candidate George Farmer.[10] It is closely allied to Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump youth movement.[11]

In May 2020 Grimes launched Reasoned, a website aimed at those "standing against the tide" who "hide [their] political views for fear of being called homophobic, a TERF, [or] racist".[12] It is a rebranding of a previous conservative youth group called Reason, and is backed by the son of former Brexit Party MEP Lance Forman. According to the satirical magazine Private Eye, a video was released in 2020 by Grimes on Reasoned that appeared to be a near word-for-word copy of a video released by the US right-wing platform PragerU.[13] Facebook adverts for the group placed in 2018 were paid for by "Your Channel Media", a company owned and run by TPUK chief executive Oliver Anisfeld.[14][better source needed]

In July 2020, an interview with the historian David Starkey that Grimes published on his video platform sparked controversy. The historian remarked that "Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there?"[15] This prompted criticism, including condemnation by former Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid, and Grimes tweeted that "I reject in the strongest possible terms what Dr Starkey said in that clip and so very wish I'd caught it at the time."[15] The Metropolitan Police opened an investigation into Grimes on the suspicion of stirring up racial hatred; Grimes was asked to attend the police station to be interviewed under caution. The former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald called the investigation "deeply threatening of free speech",[16] a view which was echoed by some Conservative Party MPs.[17] The investigation concluded without any charges being brought.[18]

In July 2021, Grimes sent a tweet to Marcus Rashford following the England football team's defeat in the Euro 2020 Final at which Rashford missed a penalty kick. Grimes tweeted: "Honestly though @MarcusRashford, penalties not politics from now on, aye?", referring to Rashford's successful lobbying to extend the provision of free school meals.[19] Grimes' comment was criticised by various people on social media as insensitive.[19]

Electoral Commission case

In 2018, Grimes was fined £20,000 by the Electoral Commission after it determined that there was evidence that BeLeave had spent more than £675,000 with the Canadian political consultancy firm AggregateIQ in coordination with the official Brexit campaign organisation Vote Leave in distribution targeted social media advertisements.[20] The Commission argued that these actions violated electoral spending rules, and that Grimes and Vote Leave official David Alan Halsall had made false declarations relating to the spending. Grimes appealed, claiming that his misstatements were unintentional. He won the appeal and his fine was overturned;[21] Vote Leave, however, withdrew its appeal and paid fines totalling £61,000.[22] Subsequently, in May 2020, the Metropolitan Police ended its investigation into Grimes and Halsall.[23] In June 2021, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission apologised to Grimes in a Sunday Telegraph interview.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ @darrengrimes_ (22 July 2018). "Guys, I'm 25 now*. RIP me" (Tweet). Retrieved 12 January 2020 – via Twitter.
  2. ^ "#InMyShoes: Darren Grimes – Killing Aspiration". BBC News. 30 March 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  3. ^ Birnbaum, Sarah (29 March 2017). "This young, LGBT advocate isn't your average Brexiteer". Public Radio International. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  4. ^ McKinney, CJ (14 February 2019). "Brexit-backing former Brighton Uni fashion student raises £77,000 in fight against 'top lawyers in the land'". Legal Cheek. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  5. ^ Waterson, Jim (17 July 2018). "Darren Grimes: the pro-Brexit student activist fined £20k". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  6. ^ "Why 'chat show Charlie' mattered to politics". BBC News. 2 June 2015.
  7. ^ "Vote Leave: Activist to give MPs evidence of 'rule breaking'". BBC News. 26 March 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  8. ^ "Matthew Elliott: Welcome to BrexitCentral". BrexitCentral. 11 September 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  9. ^ "Institute of Economic Affairs appoints new Digital Manager, Darren Grimes" (Press release). Institute of Economic Affairs. 5 June 2018. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  10. ^ Myers, Fraser (15 March 2019). "Turning Point: 'owning' the libs won't save free speech". Spiked Magazine. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  11. ^ Di Stefano, Mark; Spence, Alex. "Days After Its Disastrous British Launch, Turning Point Has Already Lost One Of Its Star Recruits". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  12. ^ "Darren Grimes, a gay man, wants 'homophobes' to 'come out of the closet' and join his new website. Yes, he actually said this". PinkNews. 29 May 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  13. ^ "What a true BeLeaver did next". Private Eye. London (1523). 5 June 2020. Archived from the original on 14 June 2020.
  14. ^ "'New' Tory youth movement is failed think-tank project". The Red Roar. 27 May 2020. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  15. ^ a b "David Starkey criticised over slavery comments". BBC News. 3 July 2020. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
  16. ^ Hamilton, Fiona. "Prosecutor criticises 'sinister' Met for investigating Darren Grimes over interview". The Times. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  17. ^ Dixon, Hayley (11 October 2020). "Dame Cressida Dick facing questions over 'politically motivated' investigation into Darren Grimes". The Telegraph. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  18. ^ "David Starkey: Police end investigation into interview with Darren Grimes". BBC News. 21 October 2020. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
  19. ^ a b "Darren Grimes slammed for 'vile' Marcus Rashford tweet". www.indy100.com. 12 July 2021.
  20. ^ "Brexit campaigner Darren Grimes raising funds to appeal against fine". BBC News. 25 July 2018.
  21. ^ "Pro-Brexit activist wins appeal against £20,000 electoral spending fine". The Guardian. 19 July 2019.
  22. ^ "Investigation: Vote Leave Ltd, Mr Darren Grimes, BeLeave and Veterans for Britain". Electoral Commission. 14 August 2019. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  23. ^ "Met Police end probe into pro-Brexit campaigners". BBC News. 8 May 2020. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  24. ^ Malnick, Edward (26 June 2021). "Britain's election watchdog stands 'ready' to organise indyref2". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 28 June 2021.

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