In December 2016, Golding was sentenced to eight weeks in prison for violating a court order that prohibited him from entering a mosque or encouraging others to do so in England and Wales.

[6] Paul Golding's leadership of Britain First has generated significant public attention, and the group has been associated with far-right ideology and controversial positions.

[10] Golding had previously been a member of the neo-Nazi National Front and once attended a Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday wearing women's underwear on his head.

[15] At the Britain First Annual Conference in November 2015, Golding and his then deputy, Jayda Fransen, led the meeting which agreed a number of policies including banning the media from using the word 'racism' and abolishing the BBC.

He explained that he intended to "help solidify Boris Johnson's control on the leadership, so we can achieve Brexit and hopefully cut immigration and confront radical Islam".

[23] In July 2014, he tried to have himself arrested at Bexleyheath police station over an incident at Crayford Mosque, but failed, an act widely considered to be a fund-raising publicity stunt.

[28] In December 2016, Golding was sentenced to eight weeks in prison for breaching a court order banning him from entering a mosque or encouraging others to do so in England and Wales.

[31] The satirical news web site, The Rochdale Herald, capitalised on the incident by inviting readers to sponsor his incarceration[32] to raise money for refugees.

[33] In December 2017, on a reported visit to Belfast to support Jayda Fransen, Golding was arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland for a speech he gave in the city in August,[34] and was later charged.

[35] On 7 March 2018, Fransen and Golding were found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment at Folkestone Magistrates' Court, as a result of an investigation concerning the distribution of leaflets in 2017 in the Thanet and Canterbury areas.

[40] Graham Morris, a former Britain First member, had claimed that the deputy leader, Jayda Fransen, had encouraged the victim to stay quiet, saying, "I can give everything you need, a platform.

[40] On 29 November 2017, US president Donald Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim videos shared by Jayda Fransen on her Twitter account supporting her views.