Thorne is a member of the Steering Group Committee for the British Chinese Armed Forces Heritage project which started in 2015. This is a joint project in collaboration between the Ming-Ai (London) Institute and Regent's University London. Thorne is a freemason,[6] and was Provincial Grand Master of Essex Freemasons for ten years from 1995 to 2005.
In 2018, Thorne attracted media criticism for his application for planning permission to relocate a statue of Emmeline Pankhurst.[7] Suffragettes raised funds and twice negotiated the site of the statue in 1930 and 1956, when the government also attempted to remove the statue. The proposed site in Regent's University London has no link to Pankhurst or suffragette history.