The Telegraph reports that the controversial charity Stonewall has received £1.25 million in taxpayer-funded grants in the past 18 months, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as its largest donor. Cash handouts to the LGBT+ charity from the Government and public bodies increased by more than 67 per cent from their previous set of accounts, with the Foreign Office alone handing over more than £750,000 in 2020-21.

The accounts to March 2021, which cover a period of 18 months, show that the charity received £1,249,363 in grants from public bodies. This is a near-67 per cent increase on the £748,295 they received in their previous accounts, which covered 12 months from to September 2019. Taxpayer-funded bodies accounted for more than 52 per cent of the total grants. The Foreign Office’s contribution of £765,061 was more than five times the £145,075 that the department provided the year before.

The Welsh and Scottish Governments also handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds, whilst NHS Scotland provided a grant of almost £50,000. The Government Equalities Office, also headed by Ms Truss, began funding Stonewall in the 18 months to March 31 2021, giving the organisation £50,393. On top of the grants, the charity also received £616,225 from the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Stonewall was once leading gay rights organisation but in recent years has morphed into an all purpose LGBT quango, pushing the transgender ideology into all levels of government - including the police. Stonewall works to institutionalise the principle that people should be treated as the ‘gender’ they say they are, teaching businesses’ Human Resources departments to enforce the principle. Precisely how dangerous that is is beyond the scope of this article, but even gay rights campaigners have realised that Stonewall no longer acts in their interests.

All of these NGOs and ‘charities’ are propped up with state money. They then use that money to petition the very same state machine to bend to their will. In other words, the state is using proxies to attain the goals that it dare not explicitly promote itself.

This is probably not news to Ukippers who have long observed the same behaviour in the EU lobbying apparatus, where nearly all of the major green NGOs are recipients of EU cash as a means to manufacture consent and the veneer of democratic legitimacy. In the 2016 referendum many of the “civil society” groups masquerading as impartial “fact checkers” were bought and paid for by the EU. EU money has long been laundered through NGOs to buy off academia, think tanks and foundations.

The same dynamic can also be observed in the Dover dinghy debate. The dishonestly named “Refugee Council” is always used by Sky and the BBC for a ready supply of talking heads to argue for more “safe and legal routes” (open borders), but a quick glance at their accounts reveals multiple incomes streams which are ultimately taxpayer’s cash. These same organisations supply the “expert” witnesses for parliamentary select committees – culminating in the sort of drivel we see from Caroline Noakes.

These are also the same NGOs and charities who seemingly have no end of cash to bring spurious human rights cases to court, be it preventing a new airport runways and power stations, or stopping the Home Office from deporting Somali gang rapists. Our own institutions have been weaponised against us.

They call it “civil society activism” but it amounts to an elite capture of the state. They have real power and they use it without accountability. This is where the media is so often duped by the left into believing any attempts at reform are an attack on “our democracy” or “human rights”. The NGOcracy is keen to safeguard its privileged access to power.

This, ultimately, is what we mean when we say “the establishment”. The revolving door system between think tanks, NGOs, politics and the BBC. They represent nobody, and push their minority will on the rest of us, despite there being a clear mandate to overhaul human rights law and immigration. This same activism is in part why we have failed to invest in useful baseload energy generation and it’s why our bills are skyrocketing.

This corrupt ecosystem of special interests was one of the more compelling reasons to leave the EU, but it seems that same technocratic culture has replicated into the British political and legal system over the last three decades. They don’t have to set up parties, make their case and get people to vote for their agenda. They can just dip into their vast war chest, buy a top legal team and get to work.

Democracy, as any Ukipper will tell you, is a long, slow, difficult process, but these groups have found a way around it. It’s part of the reason nothing changes no matter who you vote for. Special interest groups are already getting to work to thwart Patel’s new Borders Bill, and even if the bill passes, it won’t be very long before they’ve defanged it.

This, incidentally, is why I re-joined UKIP. I think Priti Patel is sincere when she says she wants to fix immigration, but she knows she won’t get any major reforms through and there’s no chance the Tories will take on the NGO blob. They would have to go to war with the entire establishment, and pick fights with powerful international groups. It's Brexit all over again – and they just don’t have the stomach for it. Only UKIP does. UKIP understands that this is a fight for the soul of Britain, and a fight to the death.

This is at the core of what UKIP exists for. We fight for the sovereignty of the British people. Brexit was about the fundamental question of who governs us and where the power resides. Like the war for free speech, the fight for the democracy is never over. Brexit was just one battle in a long war, and democracy is losing. UKIP is the only party that understands the stakes.