Alan Lake is the pseudonym used by Alan Ayling, a computer expert from Highgate, London. Until 2011, he was a director of Pacific Capital Investment Management. Ayling was described by the media in 2011 as a millionaire, and as the "chief financier" of the

English Defence League The English Defence League (EDL) is a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom. A social movement and pressure group that employs street demonstrations as its main tactic, the EDL presents itself as a single-issue movement ...

(EDL), which Lake reportedly "fiercely denied". He did admit to having "given some money to help some EDL things happen" in his first television interview, on Norwegian '' TV 2''. According to then EDL leader Tommy Robinson, Ayling had never been a member of the EDL, and the EDL had not received funding from him. Responding to media claims saying the opposite, Robinson said that "he ylingspoke at two demos and he wore a suit, and all of a sudden he was a millionaire funder." Lake was considered a central figure in organising international counter-jihad contacts. Lake spoke at a seminar on Islamisation in Malmö, Sweden, in 2009, organised by the

Sweden Democrats The Sweden Democrats ( sv , Sverigedemokraterna ; SD ) is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Sweden. As of 2022, it is the largest member of Sweden's right-wing governing bloc to which it provides confidence and supply, a ...

. Lake has since said that he continues to maintain good relations with many of the party's members and that he is a good friend of MP Kent Ekeroth. He has considered that the state "might as well" execute Islamists who seek to impose

sharia Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...

law in the UK, and according to '' The Guardian'' he called for discussion about killing the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

, the Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

and the deputy PM Nick Clegg for allegedly supporting sharia law for Britain. Ayling also founded the

far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...

"4 Freedoms" website. Lake rarely speaks with the press. According to Professor Nigel Copsey, Lake represented the more "respectable" intellectual wing of the EDL. In October 2011, Norwegian police formally investigated Lake to discover any potential ideological influence he may have had on mass murderer

Anders Behring Breivik Fjotolf Hansen (born 13 February 1979), better known by his birth name Anders Behring Breivik () and by his pseudonym Andrew Berwick, is a Norwegian far-right domestic terrorist, known for committing the 2011 Norway attacks on 22 July 2011. On ...

. He was awarded 5,000 euros in damages by a Maltese court from Paul Adam Cinato for defamation of character after Cinato blogged that Lake was Breivik's mentor. In January 2012, after the true identity of "Alan Lake" was revealed, Ayling was suspended from his management post at the

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution founded in 1991. As a multilateral developmental investment bank, the EBRD uses investment as a tool to build market economies. Initially focus ...

in the City of London.

References

External links

Interview with Lake on Norwegian TV 2
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lake, Alan Living people Counter-jihad activists People from Highgate English Defence League British critics of Islam Year of birth missing (living people)