Milo Yiannopoulos speaking during a rally in the US in 2021. He has declared himself ‘firmly off the Trump train’. Photograph: Julio Cortez/APView image in fullscreenMilo Yiannopoulos speaking during a rally in the US in 2021. He has declared himself ‘firmly off the Trump train’. Photograph: Julio Cortez/AP‘Wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole’: Milo Yiannopoulos faces struggle to fit in with UK right wingThe ‘alt-right’ agitator and former Trump backer deported from US is said to be too extreme for GB News and Reform
As he arrives back in the UK after being deported from the US by the Trump administration, the far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos may be wondering what lies ahead for him in his native country.
The “alt-right” agitator, 41, made his name in the US by promoting Donald Trump and associating with his allies before the 2016 election.
But now the Trump administration has unceremoniously dumped the former Breitbart News editor back in the UK after he allegedly overstayed his visa. He has also made plenty of disparaging comments about the president, including that he is “firmly off the Trump train”.
Those in the rightwing ecosystem in the UK say Yiannopoulos is now too extreme to find a prominent berth back home.
The commentator started his career at the Daily Telegraph, where he wrote a controversial blog until 2011, when he started his own website, the Kernel. In 2014 he started working for the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon at Breitbart News, before moving to the US and promoting far-right causes.
He left Breitbart after a controversy over a video in which he appeared to condone sexual relations with boys as young as 13. He later said “sloppy editing” and his “British sarcasm, provocation and gallows humour” had created the wrong impression and denied endorsing paedophilia.
Since he left the UK, GB News has become the ascendant broadcast outlet of the right, but he is unlikely to find a place there. A source at the channel said: “We wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole, not in a million years. GBN had a few odd people to start with and we’ve got rid of them.”
Yiannopoulos after his arrest by federal immigration agents in New Orleans. Photograph: Department of Homeland Security/ReutersOf the provocative positions that brought him notoriety in the US, the GB News source said: “He won’t make much money out of it here, he appeals entirely to an American audience. It’s a bigger country and you have a bigger pool of fruit loops.”
There is a growing subsection of rightwing provocateurs in the UK who have been deemed too controversial for the main channels but have established niche brands of their own. The journalist Dan Wootton was suspended from GB News after a guest on his show made sexually inappropriate comments about a female journalist, and after leaving he now has his own channel.
The former TalkTV host Mike Graham has also set up his own independent show. He was sacked after the company said he had failed to cooperate with an investigation into a racist post that appeared on one of his social media accounts. Graham said the racist comment had been the result of his account being hacked.
It is understood that Reform UK will not accept him into its ranks. His former colleague at Breitbart, Raheem Kassam, is close to the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, and is in the UK for Reform’s national conference.
Kassam, who is British but now lives in the US, claimed he was kept updated on the deportation of Yiannopoulos, who he accused of making “lurid and false accusations” against him.
He added: “I got word last month that he was about to be deported. On Thursday night, I got a call. As overly dramatic as it may seem. ‘We got him. In Louisiana.’”
The Maga influencer Laura Loomer has claimed to have reported Yiannopoulos to immigration enforcement over his expired visa.
View image in fullscreenLaura Loomer (front, centre) celebrates with Yiannopoulos at a congressional primary election night event in West Palm Beach, Florida, in August 2020. Photograph: Allen Eyestone/APOne political party that may accept Yiannopoulos is Restore Britain, which is led by Rupert Lowe, a former Reform MP who had a falling-out with Farage.
Restore has accepted a number of characters viewed as too extreme for Reform, including the convicted criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson.
Yiannopoulos has praised Lowe, calling him “fantastic” and urging those on the UK hard-right to join Restore. He said “the rising generation of young British activists” all “support Restore” and has taunted Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, online, telling him “you’re gonna lose all your votes to Rupert”. The Guardian contacted Lowe to ask whether he would accept Yiannopoulos as a party member or adviser but did not receive a response.
Kassam said: “He’s certain to resurface in Britain shortly. Perhaps as an adviser to Rupert Lowe, or perhaps as a contestant on some third-tier reality TV show.”
Yiannopoulos used to have more political influence; he was offered a speaking slot at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in 2017 after he had been supportive of Donald Trump during his run for his first presidency.
He was deported to the UK on Friday, according to US authorities. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Yiannopoulos “legally entered the country” in May 2019 through New York City but then “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws”.
In 2022, Yiannopoulos worked on Kanye West’s short-lived 2024 White House campaign, and his social media account suggests he was working one of the rapper’s companies.
Last year, Yiannopoulos said he was “never going back home” because the UK needed a “mass deportation programme”.
