If you have never heard of Carole Cadwalladr, them I wouldn't be surprised , whilst her detractors constantly appear on BBC news and factional Programmes like her rival Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott the author of The Bad Boys of Brexit an inside account of the Leave.EU campaign during Brexit which she had ghost-written for the UKIP donor Arron Banks. Oakeshott has spoken about her support for Brexit, including on the BBC's Question Time.[22]She was allegedly in possession of details about Russia's cultivation and handling of Brexit's biggest funder, Arron Banks, that he was in regular contact with Russian officials from 2015 to 2017, but publicly downplayed Russian involvement with Banks.
Why you may ask . Well it could be that M Cadwalladr,s which have alleged malpractice by campaigners for Brexit, and the reputed illicit funding of Vote Leave, in the 2016 EU membership referendum. She has also reported on alleged links between Nigel Farage, the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election currently under investigation in the United States] Before Cambridge Analytica closed operations in 2018, the company took legal action against The Observer for the claims made in Cadwalladr's article
Yesterday as Arron Banks appeared on the Andrew Marr show to has insist there was was “no Russian money, no interference” in the £8m he gave to the unofficial Brexit campaign, but refused to disclose which of his companies had generated the cash. you may have thought there would have been an interview Cadwalladr, even if legal matters including sub judice were taken into account.
Of course it would be wrong to judge Arron Banks, before any trial (if any takes place). Indeed he may be hoping that his presence on the Marr show amongst others could lead to a a Judhe ruling a mistrial, but surley it is time that the journalist who has done so much to bring the allegations to our attention,gets airtime alongside those Brexiters who are denying it.
Why you may ask . Well it could be that M Cadwalladr,s which have alleged malpractice by campaigners for Brexit, and the reputed illicit funding of Vote Leave, in the 2016 EU membership referendum. She has also reported on alleged links between Nigel Farage, the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election currently under investigation in the United States] Before Cambridge Analytica closed operations in 2018, the company took legal action against The Observer for the claims made in Cadwalladr's article
Yesterday as Arron Banks appeared on the Andrew Marr show to has insist there was was “no Russian money, no interference” in the £8m he gave to the unofficial Brexit campaign, but refused to disclose which of his companies had generated the cash. you may have thought there would have been an interview Cadwalladr, even if legal matters including sub judice were taken into account.
Bank's the founder of Leave.EU, whom the Electoral Commission referred to the National Crime Agency (NCA), said he wanted to state “absolutely for the record, there was no Russian money or interference of any type, I just want to be absolutely clear about that”.
The Electoral Commission’s review of referendum finances focused on £2m loaned by Banks and his insurance companies to Better for the Country, the parent company of Leave.EU, and a £6m donation that he made alone.
Banks was referred to the NCA after it found evidence to suspect the funds came from Rock Holdings, owned by Banks and based in the Isle of Man. The company is offshore and thus barred from donating.
Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, a measure which many have criticised , doubting Marr's and the BBC impartiality Banks claimed the money came from his UK company Rock Services, and said it was generated by his group of insurance businesses.
“The money came from Rock Services, which was a UK limited company. It was generated out of insurance business written in the UK,” Banks said. “Contrary to some of the press reports … we turn over £250m of premium, it’s a sizeable business.”
If you want to see the allegations then you really need to look Carole Cadwalladr recent article
I’m not sure I’d even heard of Arron Banks, 22 months ago. He was just some businessman who’d given money to Nigel Farage and whom I’d chanced upon when I started investigating the now-defunct data firm Cambridge Analytica.
Some businessman who has loomed large in my life ever since then. Who has called me hysterical, insane, a lunatic, a mad woman, a conspirator, a loony, a mad cat lady, a nasty piece of work, a criminal, a bully, a mad cat lady, a loony, a tinfoil hat nutter, a hacker, a mad cat lady, a loony, a bitter Remoaner, a lone conspiracy theorist, an enemy of the people.
Who has reported me to the police. Who has a file of information on me that includes my address, telephone number, age and some details about my personal relationships. Who has posted memes and caricatures and, in one instance, a violent threat towards me on social media. And who, last week, was referred to the National Crime Agency.
The Electoral Commission has concluded there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect he had committed multiple criminal offences. It couldn’t determine if the millions that he’d donated to Farage’s campaign were from “impermissible” – or foreign – sources.
It’s a landmark moment. Banks is the single biggest funder, by a long way, of the EU referendum, his millions underwrote Farage’s entire campaign. But this is just one of multiple different inquiries into Banks’s business and political dealings; investigations that are being conducted by at least three different agencies. It’s unclear whether they will be complete – or in some cases even begun – by the time Britain leaves the EU next March.
It’s telling though that the news has come, almost exactly a year on from the moment when Banks’s behaviour seemed to change. Because until last November, he had responded with winning good humour to the reports the Observer published, even though the very first piece we published kicked off two other official investigations: one was by the Electoral Commission, which was referred to the Met police in May; the other was by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) examining the use of data in the Brexit referendum.
But two years ago, it didn’t seem so serious. The Electoral Commission had almost no power. The inquiry by the ICO, which will publish its final report this week, has turned into the biggest data protection investigation ever. But we didn’t know that then and Banks agreed to meet me, just days after article 50 was triggered.
I spent an extraordinary afternoon with him during which he joked about his wife being a Russian spy, told me about his diamond mines, his Belizean diplomatic passport, his appearance in the Panama Papers and my hopeless and doomed efforts to hold him to account. “You’re looking for a smoking gun, but there’s a smoking gun on every table!” he said. “And no one cares. No one cares!” They didn’t. He was right.
Then that seemed to change. In a two-week period, Robert Muellerannounced his first indictments in the United States over the 2016 presidential campaign and revealed a number of telling links that ran through the Russian embassy in London. The Electoral Commission announced another investigation into the source of Arron Banks’s finances after a series of news reports by Open Democracy and the Financial Times.
As the Brexit bill struggled through parliament, Banks launched vitriolic social media attacks on 12 MPs including Anna Soubry for being “traitors” and “enemies of the people”. And a week after I revealed that the Russian embassy had written to the Observer calling me a “bad journalist” who had “shown my true colours”, he posted a spoof video of me, beaten up and threatened with a gun, as the Russian national anthem played.
This summer, when journalist Peter Jukes and I were passed emails that detailed a covert relationship with the Russian government including introductions to lucrative gold and diamond deals, he reported us both to two different police forces. Since then, he and his sidekick, Andy Wigmore, posted more or less daily attacks. They say there is worse to come.
Banks and Wigmore and that man who is at the centre of this all, Farage, have attempted what I’ve always thought of as a Top Gear aesthetic. They’ve striven, above all, to be the Good Blokes of British politics. The ones with whom the man in the street wouldn’t mind having a pint.
But the mask has slipped. The appearance of Banks and Wigmore at the committee investigating fake news showed contempt for parliament. In their report, MPs noted Wigmore was a “self-confessed liar”, he and Banks lacked credibility and that they’d lied about their links to Russia. Meanwhile, Leave.EU’s attacks on anyone who dares question the path of true Brexitiness have turned vicious. Damian Collins, the Tory MP who chairs that committee, has become a hate figure to them and a campaign has emerged to unseat him. In Britain, where our national identity rests on our ability not to take things too seriously, Banks has been treated like more of a figure of fun than a serious threat. But it hasn’t felt like that if you’ve been on the receiving end of his attacks. Or for any of the MPs on the committee who Banks has tried to smear. He is using “bully-boy tactics” with a “sinister edge” to “abuse and intimidate”, Collins wrote last week.
This is not how Good Blokes act. It’s not to say Banks is guilty of anything. He is innocent until proved guilty. But nor are journalists and MPs enemies of the people.
In America, the media debate how to report Trump’s statements with an earnestness that is a hallmark of the US press. Our humour, tolerance and ability to take the piss are some of the very best things about being British, things that deserve the epithet “great”. But this isn’t Top Gear gone wrong. It’s our institutions – our press, our parliament – under attack. How we treat Banks, how we report on him, how we deal with the multiple probes into him and the other referendum campaigns is how the future will judge us. It’s not funny – take it from me.
Of course it would be wrong to judge Arron Banks, before any trial (if any takes place). Indeed he may be hoping that his presence on the Marr show amongst others could lead to a a Judhe ruling a mistrial, but surley it is time that the journalist who has done so much to bring the allegations to our attention,gets airtime alongside those Brexiters who are denying it.
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