“Do you know an Ed Sheeran?” reads the subject line of a newsletter sent out yesterday by “Hannah” at Refugee Action:
Refugee Action is a charity I’ve been banging on about a fair bit - including on GB News on Sunday evening.
It received £16,765,000 from taxpayers between 2021-25…
… and is very radical, recently lobbying Andy Burnham to scrap the Immigration and Asylum Bill:
In its latest email it wrote:
Dear Charlotte,
Ed Sheeran has been making headlines these last few weeks. In case you’re not following the story, he’s been widely criticised for the decision to remove his support act Macklemore from his American tour, after Macklemore said ‘free Palestine’ at one of their shows.
Ed Sheeran’s response was criticised by many as ‘sitting on the fence’.
It got me thinking about the people in my life who take a back seat when it comes to difficult conversations.
They might feel like they don’t know enough about a situation to speak up about it, or they might be worried that by doing so, they’ll be rocking the boat or upsetting someone.
These conversations can be hard to navigate, but as one of our incredible supporters, you know just how big of an impact they can have.
Being apolitical is a luxury for people whose lives do not depend on those with power taking action.
That’s why we’ve been working on tools to help you speak out about refugee rights.
We’ve got tools to answer questions like ‘why can’t refugees stay in the first safe country they reach?’ or ‘why are there so many refugees in the UK?’.
If you want to feel more informed, more up to date and more able to have those tricky conversations, you can read our resources here:
And if you have a friend like Ed who might need some persuading, you could share this email with them, or maybe share this explainer sheet on your social media:
We might not have a platform as big as Ed Sheeran’s, but we all have a voice, and we know when we speak up together incredible things are possible.
Please help us spread the message.
With thanks,
Hannah - Campaigns Team
Refugee Action
The gist is that, if you know someone who isn’t standing up for Palestinians/ refugee rights, you can use the charity’s tools to educate them, including its ridiculous activist pack, which I’ve written about here:
Unfortunately for the charity, many people aren’t apolitical and simply want to defund it and many others of its kind.
What are the sources of Refugee Action’s income?
Refugee Action: Income from charitable activities (grants from public authorities) Year ended 31 March 2025, with 2024 comparison
Note: This section is assisted by Claude AI
I do wonder if those organisations funding these ideological and clearly political so-called charities have read their relevant rules or articles to check if they’re allowed to give to such causes. For instance, why is the Lloyds Bank Foundation and NHS Bradford Districts CCG making sizeable donations?