[8] Consequently, Staines declared himself bankrupt in October 2003 after two years of litigation, and legal costs on both sides running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

[25] Staines worked as "foreign policy analyst" for the Committee for a Free Britain, a right-wing Conservative pressure group, alongside David Hart.

Staines acted as editor of British Briefing, a long-standing publication by the group that was a "monthly intelligence analysis of the activities of the extreme left" that sought to "smear Labour MPs and left-leaning lawyers and writers".

[15] Staines relates of his work with the committee: I was lobbying at the Council of Europe and at Parliament; I was over in Washington, in Jo'burg, in South America.

The only scary thing about those publications was the mailing list – people like George Bush – and the fact that Hart would talk to the head of British Intelligence for an hour.

[33] Although he subsequently refused to confirm the links, further media coverage continued to name Staines as Fawkes until the airing of a BBC Radio 4 documentary[34] about him on 10 February 2007, which gave a detailed history and background, and prompted his blog post "So Much for Anonymity".

[36] In May 2006, Staines (as Guido Fawkes) co-authored a book with Iain Dale, which was critical of the Labour Party's practices since taking office in 1997.

[37] In April 2006, Staines was one of numerous bloggers subject to an injunction[38] from News International for publishing a picture of the undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood.

[citation needed] Guido reported the allegation that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was having an extramarital affair with an MP.

It also named the woman in question, saying that such rumours had long been shared among Westminster journalists, but that the blog was being less hypocritical and breaking the clique by refusing to cover up such stories.

In 2011 GQ ranked him, alongside co-author Harry Cole, jointly at number 28 in the magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential Men in Britain.

[48] Vote Leave employee Tom Harwood was hired as a Guido reporter in July 2018;[49] he left in 2021 to join GB News.

[50] Staines has said that Steve Bannon, a former senior adviser [51] to Donald Trump and head of Breitbart News, once tried to buy Guido.

[55] When he was convicted of the same offence six years later, he was asked in court by District Judge Timothy Stone whether he had an alcohol problem and replied: "Possibly."

[57] Global & General Nominees Limited (GGN) publishes the Guido Fawkes website, and is based in the tax haven of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Staines describes himself as an "adviser" to GGN, and stated that the company is based in Saint Kitts and Nevis as a "litigation shield".