Although the party is languishing in the polls, and its leader’s obsession with the far-right is bringing it little more than ridicule, the rump of saloon bar propper-uppers otherwise known as UKIP is about to hit the news stands in a way which is already causing that leader considerable discomfort. Because it’s all about him.
I em not a racialist but, und zis is a big but …
The inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker – whether the paper concerned is the Daily Mail or Mail on Sunday is not yet clear – clearly do not have enough on their collective plates with Brexit. So they have decided to delve into the wacky world of Adolf von Batten, and what they have found there has been deemed newsworthy enough for it to be given significant prominence in a weekend edition of one of the two titles.
Exactly what the Mail titles may have in mind was outlined by John O’Connell of Far Right Watch, who told his followers “The Daily Mail or Mail on Sunday, or both, have a take-down prepared on #Ukip’s @GerrardBatten for this weekend. We hear there’s lots of new stuff, including criminality. Expect #Ukip head implosions and tantrums galore”. Criminality? Some may be surprised. They should not be.
It has been put to me on more than one occasion that Batten’s links to bent coppers are long-standing and potentially damaging to at least one Police force. It has also been put to me that he has been able to use these links to damage his rivals and keep the heat off himself. What Batten may not know is that the press also does links to bent coppers, and has done for decades. Why d’you think phone hacking nearly got covered up?
The Met knew it had enough evidence to sink the Murdoch empire. It pretended it didn’t. The Murdoch mafiosi was well in with the Met. They were not the only ones in the press pack to be so favoured. Anyone who thinks their Police contacts trump those of the press establishment is not dealing from a full deck.
So how has Batten reacted to the impending defenestration by the Rothermere goons? Simples. The idiot has admitted it’s on its way. “Not content with sending a ‘journalist’ thousands of miles to harass my wife’s family in the Philippines last week the Daily Mail has sent our Party Chairman a bunch of ludicrous questions about me. They plan more hatchet jobs. Not once have they ever asked me about Brexit”.
Ask yourselves why the Mail should dispatch someone to the Philippines. Clue: it’s not for the purposes of bringing the readers a heartwarming story of love across the national, and indeed racial, divide. Gerard Batten is about to be exposed and ridiculed big time, and there is nothing he can do about it. Except rant about the hated MSM.
If there is nothing in the Mail’s exposé, then he has nothing to worry about, and the story will die a death. If there is, UKIP will become even more of a laughing stock. And if he gets defamed in the process, well, tough titty Adolf. You and your pals don’t fret when you’re all doling that out to anyone else. What’s sauce for the goose, and all that.
Gerard Batten is about to follow Paul Nuttall into becoming the comedy leader of a comedy political party. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bigot.
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
UKIP leader Gerard Batten and two other UKIP MEPs (Stuart Agnew and Jane Collins) have joined Marine Le Pen’s ENF group in the European Parliament. Batten had resigned from Farage’s more moderate EFDD group in December to sit as an independent. The far right ENF group was founded in 2014 following discussions between Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, and consists of a number of quasi-fascist parties across Europe.
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Published: 23:03, 8 January 2019 | Updated: 01:59, 9 January 2019
Gerard Batten (left) and Tommy Robinson (right) at a rally
For years, he was thought of by his Ukip colleagues as a ‘mad old grandad’ single-minded in his dislike of two things – the EU and Islam.
Former ‘harmless’ MEP Gerard Batten, 64, has now been accused of dramatically steering Ukip to the far-Right since taking over as leader.
His sudden ascent to the top job last year prompted a wave of resignations – including that of the party’s former leader, Nigel Farage – due to his flirtation with extremists.
Mr Batten’s recent decision to appoint former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson as an adviser led campaigners to warn that the far-Right has been given a stage in mainstream British politics.
Former senior Ukip figures yesterday accused Mr Batten of deliberately staging a ‘revolution’ to shift the party’s focus from Brexit to a stance criticising Islam and multiculturalism.
An ex-MEP, who recently quit the party, said: ‘Many of Gerard’s beliefs would have been very well settled in the BNP.’
Ukip leader Gerard Batten (left) and his wife, Franceslina (right)
Mr Batten has previously courted controversy by describing Islam as a ‘death cult’ and calling for British Muslims to sign a charter of understanding in which they denounce violence.
His dramatic effect on the Ukip since taking over as leader in February 2018 came after years spent languishing on its fringes when colleagues said he became ‘obsessed’ with Islam.
Mr Batten first developed an interest in politics as a child, watching current affairs programmes about the Cold War at home in London’s Isle of Dogs.
As the son of a shipping clerk, he has described his childhood as typically working class. He landed his first job as a bookbinder at the age of 18 before becoming a BT salesman. While working for the telecoms giant Mr Batten met his wife Frances Lina, now 60, who had moved to the UK as an immigrant from the Philippines.
The couple, who married in 1988 while she was studying business, have two sons and live in a £630,000 terraced house in East London.
Mr Batten’s role as a trade union official at BT helped fuel a growing political interest. He later fondly recalled ‘violent arguments between me and the lefties’. In 1991 he joined the Anti-Federalist League, formed to campaign against the Maastricht Treaty.
Tommy Robinson (left) attempts to join Ukip via his mobile phone in front of UK Independence Party Leader Gerard Batten (right) at a rally after taking part in a “Brexit Betrayal” march organised by Ukip in central London in December 2018
Alongside Mr Farage and party founder Alan Sked, Batten helped to transform the body into Ukip two years later. Mr Sked, now professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, said: ‘When I set up Ukip he was a perfectly decent, moderate family man.’
But the academic, who left the party in 1997, said he was shocked years later to receive campaign literature from him. ‘It was Gerard Batten saying we should stop immigration and foreigners taking our jobs,’ said Mr Sked. ‘I felt like saying, “Your wife has been working [here] since she came to Britain”.’ Mr Sked raised alarm bells about Ukip’s current focus on Islam, adding: ‘He will take the party into a cul-de-sac and kill it.’
After Mr Batten became an MEP in 2004 party officials began to become alarmed about his views on Islam and he was almost deselected in 2014. Jonathan Arnott, a leading Ukip MEP who quit the party in January last year, said: ‘He sees everything as black and white – that either Muslims are good or they are bad. And he has decided they are bad.’
Mr Batten’s most controversial move has been his vocal support for Robinson. Mr Batten has claimed he could help transform Ukip into a ‘mass movement’.
Party officials have credited his decision to attract new supporters with boosting membership numbers from 18,000 last year to just under 27,000 now.
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Forget the Kardashians, or the Osbourne family, Cockburn predicts the next big name in TV will be the Papadopouloses, George and Simona. He’s the former Trump campaign aide who just got out of jail after admitting to lying to the FBI. She’s the sultry Italian blonde who’s now set her heart on a career in acting. Together, they are on a raging publicity drive.
A mini-documentary series following their lives as they settle down to conjugal life in Los Angeles is already being made. It’s not meant to be a reality show, but Simona clearly doesn’t mind the idea of fame. ‘Let’s start with Keeping Up with the Papadopouloses,’ she laughs to Cockburn. ‘The rest, we’ll see.’
Simona says she is looking forward to pursuing a Hollywood career now that she and her man are ‘at the end, I hope, of a dark period’. She’d already landed a part as Brigitte Bardot in an unfinished film called Affairs on Capri, directed by a British man called Paul Wiffen.
Wiffen, it turns out, is the former Chairman of UKIP London, a contributor to Russia Today, a fierce opponent of George Soros, and somebody who once attended a party with Anna Chapman, the former Russian intelligence agent turned media personality. That background will do nothing to quell rumors that somehow Simone Mangiante Papadopoulos is part of a sinister Kremlin plot
Wiffen laughs off the accusation. ‘It is a coincidence that appears to have more significance than it actually does,’ he says. ‘I’m sure people will say Putin is paying him. All I can say is that I wish I did have other sources of income to support my films.’ Wiffen said Affairs on Capri was ‘ultra low-budget’ and that he was using his income as a musician to pay for it. Indeed, he said, without Simona’s help, he may not have been able to make so much progress with filming the movie in Italy. Simona persuaded family and friends to put up members of the cast for filming. As for the idea that Simona is herself a Russian agent, Wiffen scoffs: ‘It is completely ridiculous the thought that she is a Russian spy: I’ve met half her family.’
Alas, Simona’s relationship with George and the Mueller investigation got in the way of Simona’s debut. She had some passport difficulties, and now she’s now waiting for her green card, and can’t leave the US until she gets one. The one scene she did shoot, see above, was in fact filmed in San Diego by another director. ‘It’s now got to the stage where I’ve had to look for other people who look like Brigitte Bardot,’ says Wiffen, with regret.
Simona, for her part, seems to believe her BB role is complete. She’s got another part in a film, something to do with Colombia, which she didn’t want to discuss. She’s does modelling, too, for Leo Mazzotti on Venice Beach:
There’s more to Simona than meets the eye, that much is certain. She’s a woman of various talents. She also paints, and was kind enough to share her art with Cockburn:
She’s led different lives, too. She trained as a lawyer, and worked for the European Parliament. She reveals that she is currently suing the Parliament because, after her contract was terminated, her job was awarded to another unqualified woman who happened to be related to a senior EU official. ‘It was an unbelievable piece of nepotism,’ she says. ‘You cannot have this in a public institution.’
It was after leaving her European Parliament role that Simona started to work for Joseph Mifsud and the London Centre of International Law Practice. Papadopoulos did work there, too, and first approached her, she claims, on LinkedIn. ‘He was flirting,’ she says. Their meeting was not engineered by Mifsud, she insists. But even if her love life flourished in London, Simona claims she became ‘very frustrated’ working for Mifsud and soon handed her notice.
Simona speaks five languages, which, she says, is perhaps why her accent doesn’t sound very Italian. It’s not, she insists, because she is in fact a Russian spook. ‘I think people might muddle it up with The Godfather. I think people have a stereotype of Italian, which is completely different to what I am. Looks-wise and accent-wise, they can’t profile me as Italian. But I find it funny, this Russian theory.’
She grew up in Caserta, near Naples, but her voice is not from there, either. ‘Even when I speak Italian, I don’t have a very Neapolitan accent. But…I studied abroad. I studied in Milan.’
She says she is ‘a child of the European Union’ and wants the EU to move towards a United States of Europe.
Yet she also supports Brexit, and the policies of European populists such as Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen, and opposes the ‘defamation of our Christian roots’. ‘We are allowing too many people coming from Muslim countries — there is nothing wrong with being Muslim … [But] I think it is important to impose rules. … I’m in America. I’m an immigrant. But I respect the rules of this country…in this respect, I very much agree with the politics of Salvini and Marine Le Pen, and the European right. It’s not racist what I am talking about. It’s preservation.’’
To a cynical or paranoid ear, her politics might sound a little, well, Russia Today. Cockburn suggests that some people might accuse her of rehashing the Kremlin line on the EU. ‘That’s fabrication,’ she says. ‘I think someone, somewhere is paid to spread stuff about me. I think there are journalists who are working hard to undermine my credibility.’ She’s contemplated another legal action, against one journalist but she says she won’t name him. ‘Do I really want to waste my time? I can show a dozen times my Italian passport, they will still say I am Russian. So you know what? I don’t care.’
Speaking of that, she has been accused of misleading people about her age, modifying an image of her passport to make herself 34 when she is 37. ‘This is another stupidity,’ she snaps. ‘I was making jokes on the internet. I changed on the picture saying I was born in Moscow in 2005. I never lied. It was a provocation. Who cares if I am three years younger or older? If I wanted people to think I was younger I would have taken off three years, trust me.’
Cockburn is too much of a gent to press the point. For now, we’ll let Simona settle down to life with George under the glare of the cameras. The two have, according to Wiffen, a ‘tempestous’ relationship. The director says he spent a week with them on Ischia, and ‘they spent quite a lot of the week shouting at each other. They both have that Mediterranean temperament.’ Wiffen adds that ‘while she is very bright, George is not the sharpest tool. I am not sure he quite realized what he got caught up in.’
Cockburn hopes that shared drama has brought Mr and Mrs Papadopoulos closer. With such a colourful and camera-bold star character, there must be a few seasons in their reality series, surely?
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Who is the real Nigel Farage… and why won’t he answer my questions?
Trump… Russian TV… key witnesses in Robert Mueller’s investigation. The jokey ‘bloke with a pint’ now has a network that spreads well beyond the UK. Our reporter has spent months on the trail of Mr Brexit…
The first time I call Nigel Farage live on air on his LBC radio show, I give my real name. It’s Sunday 10 June 2018, the day the Observer reports that Arron Banks, the main funder of Farage’s Leave.EU campaign, had not one (as he had claimed), but several meetings with the Russian ambassador in the run-up to the EU referendum.
“What do you want to say to Nigel?” the producer asks. “I want to talk about how the funder of his campaign has systematically lied about his relationship with the Russian government,” I say. “I can’t put you through,” the producer says, an edge of panic in her voice. “Come on,” I say. “You’re a journalist. You know these are important questions. “I’m standing in,” she says. “I’m not the usual producer.” She promises to speak to her editor and call me back.
No one calls me back.
Two days later, I try again. Banks and his business partner Andy Wigmore, the spokesman for the Leave.EU campaign, are on the show to “answer questions”. It’s an interview in the best traditions of a Stalinist show trial – the man asking them the questions is the man whose campaign they funded – but even so, they sound spooked. It’s the only occasion in my time of reporting on them that I’ve heard them so subdued and serious.
There’s never been an issue with me discussing Farage on other LBC shows such as James O’Brien’s, but, again, I can’t get through. Minutes later, a friend does, and passes me the phone. Actually, I say, just as Farage has built up a head of steam about the Trump-Russia “witch hunt”, it’s Carole Cadwalladr from the Guardian and Observer. “I don’t want to talk to Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian!” Farage says. In the video of the moment, you can see him frantically motioning his producer with his eyes. The phone line is cut.
Quick Guide
The rightwing world of Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage is so regularly on our airwaves and quoted in the press, but he is rarely held to account. At this point I’ve been writing about him for almost two years, and I have no way of asking him questions. His PR man almost never responds to messages. Doesn’t respond to interview requests.
And then on 7 September this year we finally meet. He’s on tour with a one-man show entitled An Entertaining Evening With Nigel Farage, which has just landed – somewhat bizarrely – in Melbourne, Australia. Everything is a bit different here. The day before the event, I receive a notification of a change of venue (were ticket sales perhaps not what Farage might have hoped?). The event has been moved from a mid-sized arena to the conference room of a city centre hotel.
What’s more, to get in, I have to fight my way through what feels like a running street battle. In Melbourne, Farage isn’t known as the Ukip man off the radio and telly. “He’s Donald Trump’s fascist sidekick and we don’t want his type here,” claims one of the protesters. He’s holding a placard that depicts Farage as a pig.
Inside, it’s different. The audience – overwhelmingly male, surprisingly young – laps up his well-rehearsed bonhomie. And afterwards, for an extra A$200 on my ticket fee, I get to hang out backstage with a select crowd drinking bad white wine. And then, here he is.
Hello, Nigel, I say, and introduce myself. He blinks. But, he doesn’t flee for the exit. Not straight away. It’s been frustrating, I say, because I’ve just wanted to ask you some direct questions. Will you do a proper interview with me?
“Well, I don’t know!” he says, with a flash of the trademark Farage charm. “Maybe. It depends what mood I’m in. I don’t work for you. I don’t have to do it, do I?”
No, I say, but you’re a public figure. You’re funded by taxpayers. The European Union funds you. We pay taxes that pay for you.
“Well, who funds you?” he says. “The Observer funds me,” I say.
“George Soros, is it?”
I can’t quite believe that he’s said this, apparently in all seriousness. Banks has also accused me of being funded by Soros. And I’ve heard Farage using the phrase in the European parliament. It’s a reference to George Soros, the Hungarian-born investor and philanthropist, who after the fall of communism, funded democracy-building institutions and movements across eastern Europe. He became a hate figure to the Russian government, who launched a propaganda campaign portraying him as a meddling Jewish banker.
What “funded by Soros” really means is: “funded by Jews”. It signals antisemitism to an audience without saying it directly. But the only audience is me. I’m gobsmacked. Could he actually believe this stuff?
“George Soros doesn’t fund me!” I say. “How could George Soros fund me?”
“Well I don’t know!” Farage says. “You think the Russians fund me!”
And then his minder appears. I have moments to put my question, the question that kicked it all off. Why did you visit Julian Assange? I say in a hurry.
“LBC organised that,” he says. “You seem to be so stuck in your sad little world. They sent me. LBC wanted the interview. You can’t seem to get that into your mind. Why would my press officer, I mean my producer, come with me?”
And then he’s gone.
It’s the briefest of brief encounters and yet our exchange is so instructive. Because from the Kremlin, “Soros” as a political smear spread to the likes of Hungary’s demagogue-in-training, Viktor Orbán, and was picked up a year ago by Farage. When the Electoral Commission opened an investigation into the sources of Arron Banks’s funding a year ago, Farage made a speech in the European parliament in which he blamed this development on Soros. “This is where the real international political collusion is.” From Britain, it leapfrogged to the US, where it’s been deployed by Trump supporters about the “caravans” of immigrants heading for the US border with Mexico. Last week, it descended to the final circle of this hell: Facebook. The New York Times reported that after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook hired a right-leaning opposition research firm who used accusations of “Soros funding” to smear the company’s critics. In a way, the anti-Soros propaganda illuminates everything I’ve been trying to understand about Farage’s place in today’s world: that he represents a bridge between the authoritarian far right parties of central and eastern Europe that are aligned with Russia, and Trump’s America.
It all feels a long way from West Kent golf club and the undulating greens outside Farage’s childhood home. His autobiography describes his time at Dulwich college from 1975 to 1982 (he left the public school with few if any O-levels – accounts vary), and how a meeting at the golf club led to his first job as a commodities trader on the London Metal Exchange with a minor City firm. For years, this has been the image that Farage has cultivated. The tweed jackets. The pints. The Little Englander who lived modestly in a Kent suburban home and spoke to Britain’s G&T belt. Even in 2014, he said in an interview that he realised he must reach beyond his core base, which he describes as “very middle class, very below the M4, ex-military”.
This is no longer Farage’s world. He left that world far behind some time ago. But there’s a time lag in Britain in understanding this. In understanding Farage’s relationships with the European far right. And in understanding that he’s using the same playbook as the Kremlin, Steve Bannon (Donald Trump’s former chief strategist) and Robert Mercer, who for a long time funded Bannon’s pet projects, including alt-right news site Breitbart, and Cambridge Analytica.
Here in the UK, Farage is still cosy Mr Brexit. He’s been touring the country running “Leave Means Leave” rallies – I went to one in a retail park in Bolton – where talk of medicine running out and lorries backed up on the motorway was denounced as yet more “Project Fear”. He’s the man who holds fast to an ideologically pure Brexit vision untainted by the realpolitik of Theresa May’s compromises. The man who broadcasts live on LBC five times a week and pops up on the BBC.
Critically, in Britain, where political coverage follows the beat of Westminster’s drum, we have yet to really catch up with Farage’s uncomfortable new position: in overlapping circles radiating from US special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
Could this be why Farage is avoiding me? He has refused to answer my questions for more than 18 months, since I wrote a report for the Observer – headlined When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange – published on 23 April last year. It posed a series of questions to which there are still no clear answers. Questions that, it’s become increasingly clear, cover some of the same territory that Mueller is circling.
Visiting Trump Tower in New York in December 2016 shortly after Donald Trump was elected president of the US. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Farage was caught tripping down the steps of the Ecuadorean embassy by a reporter from BuzzFeed. “Nigel Farage just visited the Ecuadorean embassy in London,” the headline said. And the story said: “Asked by BuzzFeed News if he’d been visiting Julian Assange, the former Ukip leader said he could not remember what he had been doing in the building.”
The visit had come shortly after Farage had visited Donald Trump in Washington. BuzzFeed’s story involved three individuals, Trump, Assange and Farage, who were at the centre of the political storms that had changed the world in 2016 and raised a new set of questions.
Last week, 20 months after Farage’s meeting with Assange, LBC issued a statement about it: “It was an exploratory meeting to discuss the possibility of an interview for the station. This preliminary meeting amounted to nothing, which is why LBC has not previously commented on the context in which the meeting took place as this would not be customary. Whilst Nigel Farage attended the meeting, it was not set up at his instigation.”
It was the timings around the visit that raised questions. Farage left the embassy around noon. BuzzFeed’s story appeared at 1.31pm. At 2.28pm WikiLeaks made an announcement: it would host a live press conference with Assange about his latest leak, “Vault 7”, about mass CIA surveillance. This was during a week when things had started to look serious for Trump. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, had been caught lying under oath about two meetings with the Russian ambassador and recused himself from the Russia inquiry. The “Vault 7” story , which landed US tech companies in the middle of CIA cyber-espionage, erupted on to the news cycle. It blew Russia off the front pages.
Later, in June 2017, the Guardian reported that Farage was a “person of interest” to the FBI. Last week Farage told the Sunday Times he had not spoken to Mueller’s team: “I’ve done nothing wrong, so why would I worry about it? I mean, it’s very funny, deranged.”
We don’t know if Farage is involved in the Russian intelligence operation that Mueller is so painstakingly unpicking. The investigation is in lockdown. But we know almost certainly that Assange is involved. An FBI indictment unsealed on 13 July said that at the heart of Russia’s operation to subvert the US presidential election is “Organization 1”, widely reported to be WikiLeaks.
It’s Mueller who’s identified this. It’s the FBI indictments that reveal that so many strands of the investigation run through London.
The third time I call Farage at LBC is 1 November 2018, the day Arron Banks is referred to the National Crime Agency because the Electoral Commission had decided it can’t be sure of the source of Banks’s multimillion-pound donation to Farage’s Leave.EU campaign. Or even that it came from Britain.
This time I’m “Claire from Ashford, Kent”. I’ve been thinking about Remembrance Sunday, I tell Farage. “It’s a real time to feel patriotic about our laws and sovereignty,” I say. “It certainly is,” says Farage. “It’s why I’m so concerned about these reports about not knowing where Arron Banks’s money comes from,” I say.
“I’m not discussing spending in the referendum here and now, Claire!” says Farage. The line goes dead.
Who is Nigel Farage? It’s no longer clear. When I Google “Nigel Farage” and “Soros”, I end up watching a video on the far-right conspiracy theory website InfoWars, in which Farage is being interviewed by its founder, Alex Jones. InfoWars Farage is very far from LBC Farage – even though the video is shot inside LBC’s studio, with the LBC logo behind him. This Farage talks about our shared “Judeo-Christian culture”. (Words not often heard, I can’t help thinking, in West Kent golf club.)
At a Trump rally in Mississippi in August 2016. Photograph: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
“Farage has always followed the money,” a Ukip insider, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells me. “He knows which side his bread is buttered. When the US alt-right and evangelicals started supporting him, he became just like them.” And when I ask Greg Lance-Watkins, another key ex-Ukiper, how he’d describe his ideology he says: “Farage’s ideology is Farage.” In the 90s, Lance-Watkins used to advise Farage before his Question Time appearances. “He’s scared of the trick question. That’s why he won’t speak to you.
“He’s scared of you, because you confuse him. It’s like the old adage, don’t ask a question you don’t know the answer to. He doesn’t know what answer you’re looking for.”
But then neither do I.
It’s not until I sit through An Entertaining Evening With Nigel Farage in Melbourne that I realise he’s not just a seven-times failed UK parliamentary candidate, but a bona fide YouTube star. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without YouTube,” Farage tells his audience of young men. Men who, when I ask, what do you think of Nigel Farage, say: “He’s an absolute legend.” Or: “He’s the dog’s bollocks.”
How did you come across him, I ask, Alex, a programmer who lives locally? “On YouTube. I was watching a Jordan Peterson video. He was recommended to me.”
It’s an eye-opening moment. Jordan Peterson is the Canadian psychologist whose forthright views on women and why feminism is wrong have made him an alt-right YouTube breakout star. YouTube’s algorithm had connected him to Farage.
I watch the speeches. They have titles like “Who the Hell [sic] You Think You Are? Nigel Farage throws egg in Eurocrat faces.” And “Can’t Barrage the Farrage [sic].” They’ve been viewed millions upon millions of times.
Richard Corbett, the leader of the Labour party in the European parliament, explains how it works. “Farage turns up once a month and often what he talks about has absolutely nothing to do with what’s being discussed. You think, what’s going on? And then you realise it’s got nothing to do with the parliament. It’s just for his social media output. Sometimes he doesn’t even hang around for the answers. Two minutes later, he’s back on the Eurostar and gone.” (Statistics for voting and attendances show Farage is ranked 738th out of 751 MEPs for productivity.)
It’s these YouTube set-piece speeches, pumped via the site’s algorithm to the phones and laptops of an entirely new generation, that are Farage’s power base now. And, at the centre of this, is RT (formerly Russia Today), the Kremlin-controlled English-language broadcaster. RT made Farage a YouTube star.
Much of this story, like Arron Banks’s relationship with the Russian ambassador, is hidden and covert. But there’s also much that is out in the open, like Farage’s support of pro-Russian parties in the European parliament, and his association with RT.
Guillaume Chaslot, an ex-YouTuber who’s now an adviser for the Center for Humane Technology, explains RT’s all-conquering role in the YouTube ecosystem. “They’re the biggest information network on YouTube. They’ve 22 channels and they have an absolute masterful understanding of how the algorithm works. They make this incredibly effective clickbait content – disaster videos of the tsunami and so on, and they use it to suck in traffic. And when they have the eyeballs, they use their understanding of the algorithm to send people to political content that supports their foreign policy aims.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters
RT recognised Farage’s value way back in 2011. An ex-Ukip insider tells me how RT’s London correspondent “practically lived inside Ukip’s offices. They targeted Gerard Batten first [the current leader of Ukip] and then Farage. They loved it. RT would ask them on every week. They’d talk about anything.” Batten did not respond to the Observer’s questions about his relationship with RT.
Farage is “phenomenally useful for the Russian government,” Ben Nimmo, a leading researcher into Russian online propaganda, tells me. “The thing about RT is that they are completely open about what it is. The editor-in-chief has described it as ‘information warfare’. She has said it’s as much a part of Russia’s arsenal as its ministry of defence.”
All this is out in the open, but the Observer has been shown emails that reveal something new. The person who used to upload Farage’s videos to YouTube was an EU parliament staffer called Kevin Ellul Bonici. According to a Guardian report last year, sources inside the European parliament said Ellul Bonici – who did not respond to the allegations – was “a frequent visitor to the Russian embassy”, after which he would return with “a bootload of propaganda”, and was subject to an internal investigation. The new emails seen by the Observer show that Bonici was uploading content not just to the official Ukip channel but also uploading it “on a private channel” for “the many fringe websites”.
There is no evidence that Farage knew about Ellul Bonici’s alleged relationship with the Russian embassy. When asked about all of the issues in this article, a spokesman for Farage said: “Mr Farage has no desire to speak to you under any circumstances.” The Observer could not reach Ellul Bonici for comment.
The Observer has also learned new details about a meeting between Nigel Farage and Roger Stone. Stone is the extraordinary peroxide-blond 66-year-old dandy, a self-styled “dirty trickster” who’s played a key role in many political scandals since Watergate, and who is central to Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation. On 8 August 2016, Stone told a small crowd that he’d been in touch with Assange. There would be a WikiLeaks “October surprise”, he suggested, about “the Clinton foundation”. In later comments he correctly forecast both the source of the leak and the timing of it. It is this claim to have knowledge of WikiLeaks’ material – before WikiLeaks released it – that is believed to have piqued Mueller’s intense interest.
Mueller is looking at timings of all this. The timeline of who knew about WikiLeaks’ stash of emails from Democrat accounts, and when. Emails that we now know were hacked by the Russian government and that threw the presidential race into chaos just days before the US presidential election.
Stone and his associates have been questioned by Mueller many times. Some of those associates of Stone are Farage’s associates too: InfoWars journalist Jerome Corsi, Steve Bannon and the controversial academic Ted Malloch, once tipped by Farage to be Trump’s ambassador to the EU.
US political strategist and former Trump adviser Roger Stone, who had dinner with Farage in July 2016 at the Republican National Convention. Photograph: John Sciulli/Getty Images
Stone makes his own appearance in the timeline. One of the film-makers behind the brilliant 2017 documentary Get Me Roger Stone, Daniel DiMauro, spoke to me about a meeting that he witnessed between Stone, Alex Jones and Farage during the Republican National Convention, 18-21 July 2016.
“Stone had arranged to have dinner with Alex Jones and Nigel Farage,” he tells me. And they followed him with the camera crew. “But we got to the restaurant and Farage’s people were: ‘No, no, no! You can’t film. You can’t film.’ It was weird. Jones and Stone were totally open to it. But Farage was ‘No way’. He didn’t want any record of it. We didn’t know what to make of it.
Another member of the crew told me: “It was the first time that Alex Jones, Roger Stone and Nigel Farage met face to face. We’d had a wire on Roger everywhere we went but when we turned up to meet Farage and his guy, he [Farage’s aide] was absolutely adamant.
“What was so noticeable was how Alex Jones was so pumped up afterwards about the leaks that were coming. He was saying it openly on his show. And then days later, the DNC leaks dropped [on July 22] and blew apart the Democratic National Convention.”
Less than two weeks later, on August 4, 2016, Roger Stone would also go on Alex Jones’s radio show and trail a new release. There would be “proof” of a scandal involving “Clinton Foundation”, a new “devastating” leak. “I think Julian Assange has that proof,” he said.
In 2017, a spokesman for Farage told the American magazine Mother Jones: “Nigel met Roger Stone in a restaurant in Cleveland during the RNC purely by chance. They subsequently met each other in a hotel in Washington during Trump’s inauguration, again without planning and by chance.”
If you had to pick another extraordinary story about Nigel Farage’s associates, George Cottrell would have to feature. Aged just 22, he was appointed Farage’s aide and Ukip’s chief fundraiser during the Brexit campaign. The two were at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on 22 July, 2016 – the day after the Republican convention in Cleveland at which Farage met Jones and Stone.
Arron Banks – who was also there – describes what happened in his memoir, the Bad Boys of Brexit: “As they were alighting from the domestic flight, five FBI officers cuffed him [Cottrell]. They swooped the minute he set foot on the gangway and if Wiggy [Andy Wigmore] hadn’t been standing right behind him, nobody would have known what had happened. All the other passengers were held back. It was swift and discreet, and he was hauled off without explanation.”
Cottrell was subsequently charged with 21 offences, including money laundering, fraud, blackmail and extortion. He pleaded guilty to one of them and was released after eight months in jail. In an interview with the Telegraph, he explained how he’d learned about “the murky and complicated world of ‘shadow banking’” and had worked for “an offshore private bank” that was “under investigation by the US authorities as a foreign financial institution of primary money-laundering concern”. There is no suggestion in the charges that this was linked to Ukip. Cottrell did not respond to the Observer’s attempts to reach him.
Arron Banks with George Cottrell, the Farage aide arrested and jailed in the US. Photograph: Elliott Franks/i-Images
But the biggest questions are about why Farage’s team sent confidential legal documents about Cottrell’s arrest to the Russian embassy in London. In June, the Observer was shown confidential emails that revealed that Andy Wigmore emailed Cottrell’s legal documents including his federal indictment to his main contact at the embassy, the political secretary, Alexander Udod. (Udod was expelled from Britain in March this year after Sergei Skirpal’s poisoning.)
According to Banks’s emails, on 17 August 2016, Banks and Wigmore were inside the Russian embassy, visiting the ambassador Alexander Yakovenko. This was also the day that Bannon took over as Trump’s campaign manager. On 25 August, Farage, Banks and Wigmore travelled to a Trump rally in Mississippi where Farage joined Trump on stage. The crowd roared. Here was “Mr Brexit,” said Trump. The election, he said, would be “Brexit plus, plus, plus.”
The fourth time I call Nigel Farage’s LBC show is just a week ago. Late on Saturday night, the Observer published its latest revelations about Arron Banks and the Leave.EU campaign. An academic from Essex University, Emma Briant, had obtained emails from a Cambridge Analytica employee which revealed that Banks had sought Steve Bannon’s help in soliciting campaign donations from US funders. We have no idea if Banks went ahead and attempted to fundraise in the US. We know only that it would have been illegal for him if he had. Using foreign money in a British election campaign is against the law.
But we do know the US “alt-right” played a role. On the day that Theresa May triggered article 50, 29 March 2017, a journalist from Breitbart, the rightwing news website cofounded by Steve Bannon, caught Farage with a pint of beer, outside a pub, beaming. He lifts his glass to the camera. “Well done, Bannon. Well done, Breitbart. You helped with this hugely.”
In Britain, Farage is still the man with the pint. The Good Bloke. The kind of man you wouldn’t mind having a drink with. The plucky survivor of both testicular cancer and, on the day of the 2010 general election, a spectacular plane crash. And the press coverage of him – such as an interview with him in last week’s Sunday Times – still trades in Farage cliches. Partly because, as his former colleague Lance-Watkins tells me: “He is that man. He’s hail-fellow-well-met. He likes people and he has that natural bonhomie. He did so well on Question Time because it was a form that was perfectly made for him. But that’s just what’s going on, on the surface. It masks a profound insincerity.”
Farage meeting Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian ambassador, in 2013. Photograph: Russian Embassy
Farage sits at the intersection of the key forces in a new world order. An order that the old formats can’t cope with. What we need to ask is whether a man closely allied to people like Bannon and supportive of Viktor Orbán should be allowed to amplify his propaganda unchallenged on our broadcast media.
It’s the people who have studied the campaign most closely who are asking the most questions. Damian Collins, the Conservative MP leading parliament’s fake news and disinformation inquiry, has said that “the direct links between the political movements behind Brexit and Trump” urgently need investigating.
“We’ve got to recognise the bigger picture here,” he said recently. “This is being coordinated across national borders by very wealthy people in a way we haven’t really seen before.”
The committee has called repeatedly for a Mueller-style inquiry. The government continues to ignore it.
‘What’s your question for Nigel?” the LBC producer asks me when, last Sunday morning, I call in. This time I’m “Sarah from Weybridge”, a true-blue voter disgusted with Theresa May’s Brexit betrayal. “I’ll get you straight on,” says the producer. And he does.
Actually, I tell Farage, it’s Carole Cadwalladr from the Observer. “Oh go away,” he says. “Honestly, you are a ranting lunatic.”
It’s only later that I notice the date: 18 November. Exactly three years from when Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore launched Leave.EU’s campaign. From when they walked in the door of the Russian embassy and discussed gold and diamond deals. I’m not a ranting lunatic. I’m a journalist. Who’s been trying to ask questions for nearly two years.
Nigel Farage declined to answer any questions put to him about subjects raised in this article.
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
Cambridge Analytica’s Use of Facebook Data Broke British Law, Watchdog Finds
Image
Arron Banks, a backer of Britain’s exit from the European Union, in June. The Information Commissioner’s Office found that the company he owns broke British law when it used customer data to aid the Brexit campaign. Credit CreditSimon Dawson/Reuters
LONDON — The defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica violated British law when it used improperly harvested Facebook data to aid Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and would face a significant fine if it were not already in bankruptcy, Britain’s top data protection watchdog found Tuesday.
The long-awaited report by Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which has been investigating the misuse of personal data by political campaigns, also said an insurance company owned by Arron Banks, a main backer of Britain’s campaign to leave the European Union, broke British law when it used customer data to aid the Brexit effort.
According to the commissioner’s office, the company, Eldon Insurance, shared private email addresses to be sent campaign messages on behalf of Leave.EU, a pro-Brexit group, months before the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union.
The 112-page report underscored how modern political campaigns rely on Facebook data and other consumer information, extracted or bought by consulting firms with little oversight and few protections for consumers. An investigation in March by The New York Times, The Observer of London and The Guardian revealed how Cambridge Analytica — at the time an upstart data firm bankrolled by the conservative billionaire Robert Mercer — had improperly obtained and exploited Facebook data from as many as 87 million users around the globe.
The commissioner’s investigation revealed that political campaigns in Britain had exercised little restraint in exploiting consumer data, despite the European Union’s relatively strict data laws. Political groups were acting more like online businesses and internet marketing firms to target and engage voters, the report concluded.
“We have uncovered a disturbing disregard for voters’ personal privacy,” the commissioner found.
The finding also adds to legal and political scrutiny of Mr. Banks, who was the single largest donor to the Brexit campaign. His dealings with the Russian ambassador ahead of the referendum have separately raised questions about whether the Kremlin sought to reward important backers of Britain’s exit from the European Union, and prompted British election officials last week to ask for a police investigation. In Washington, the special prosecutor, Robert S. Mueller III, has obtained records of Mr. Banks’s communications with Russian diplomats.
Now Mr. Banks’s insurance company and the Leave.EU campaign are facing total fines of 135,000 pounds, or about $177,000, for the privacy breaches, which occurred in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The insurance company owned by Mr. Banks will also be audited, the report said.
But the commissioner rejected accusations that Leave.EU secretly employed Cambridge Analytica — and possibly exploited its Facebook data haul — during the Brexit campaign, potentially violating British election disclosure laws. Though Cambridge Analytica considered working with Leave.EU, and even sent one executive to appear with Leave.EU officials at a news conference, the data company never reached an agreement with the campaign, the commissioner found.
Mr. Banks, sometimes described as the “godfather of Brexit,” has denied wrongdoing and was quick to rebuff the findings of the information commissioner’s office. The investigators “find no evidence of a grand data conspiracy and find we may have accidentally sent a newsletter to customers,” Mr. Banks said on Twitter.
But investigators specifically described an improper intermingling of data between Eldon Insurance, Mr. Bank’s company, and the Leave.EU campaign he co-founded.
Investigators said more than one million emails sent to Leave.EU supporters over two separate periods had also included marketing for Eldon Insurance services. Eldon customers also were sent a Leave.EU newsletter, an incident the company described as a mistake in managing an email distribution system.
The two organizations were already known to have close ties, including sharing board members.
The investigation began last year to look into the potential misuse of data in the British referendum on leaving the European Union. But it took on new urgency when The Times, The Observer and The Guardian revealed in March that Cambridge had improperly harvested the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent.
The British investigation involved 71 witnesses, 30 organizations whose data practices were reviewed and 700 terabytes of data — the equivalent of 52 billion pages.
In an earlier report, issued in July, the Information Commissioner’s Office said it had fined Facebook £500,000, or about $660,000 — the maximum under British law — for allowing Cambridge Analytica to harvest user data.
In addition to the new details about Mr. Banks, Tuesday’s report provides more information about the investigation into how Cambridge Analytica obtained Facebook user data.
The investigation found that Cambridge had nimbly evaded what few restrictions Facebook imposed by contracting with an academic researcher working at Cambridge University, who used an app to harvest the data, almost all of it without the users’ explicit consent.
The political consulting firm teamed up with the researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, who had created an application that collected demographic information, News Feed posts, friend lists, pages that users had liked and other data.
The information was used to create physiological profiles that could guide the targeting of political messages.
In March, officials obtained a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s offices, getting access to mobile phones, storage devices, computers and financial records. At one location, the authorities said, they discovered a number of physically damaged servers, from which investigators were able to recover information.
Investigators said the Information Commissioner’s Office needed more to time to review evidence, including Cambridge Analytica’s email system, to better determine who had access to data on Facebook users.
“There are several strands that will take us into the future,” said Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner.
Cambridge Analytica announced in May that it was ceasing most operations and filing for bankruptcy amid growing legal and political scrutiny of its business practices and work for the Trump campaign. The elections division of Cambridge’s British affiliate, SCL Group, was also shut down.
In its report on Tuesday, the information commissioner said that had the company still existed, it would have faced “a substantial fine for very serious breaches” or Britain’s data protection laws. The company, the report added, engaged in “unfairly processing people’s personal data for political purposes, including purposes connected with the 2016 U.S. presidential campaigns.”
The report did not draw any conclusions about whether data mining techniques used by Cambridge Analytica and others had determined the outcome of elections in the United States or Britain, but the regulator called on policymakers to draft new laws to restrict how data is collected and shared for political purposes.
“We may never know whether individuals were unknowingly influenced to vote a certain way in either the U.K. E.U. referendum or the U.S. election campaigns,” the report said. “But we do know that personal privacy rights have been compromised by a number of players and that the digital electoral ecosystem needs reform.”
Adam Satariano reported from London, and Nicholas Confessore from New York. Matthew Rosenberg contributed reporting from Washington.
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
it does look as if Ukip are getting ever more desperate, I guess rightly so, but surely they could have found someone of experience to act as Party Chairman until they could find an individual of some stature, gravitas and obvious ability rather than select a random functionary from head office at Lextrum Office.
I note the incoming Party Chairman has started out by a direct challenge to the current Party Leader over the foolish concept of seeking to recruit the very dubious Tommy Robinson!
I guess we have the early rounds of yet another round of Ukip fighting like ferrets in a sack!
Minded that Ukip is so financially bereft it doesn’t even have sufficient cash for printing!
As you are now probably aware, Tony McIntyre has taken the decision to stand down as Party Chairman. He dedicated far more than was expected and he was a pleasure to work with. It is right that he puts his own health first and I would personally like to offer him the thanks he clearly deserves. He has made clear that he will remain a loyal supporter and activist.
I have had the pleasure of meeting many of our members but for those I have not, let me give you a brief introduction; I began working for UKIP in the lead up to the 2014 European elections, answering the relentless telephone calls from supporters and detractors alike and administering donations and new members onto the party database. There were approximately 30 people working from Lexdrum House at that time and the atmosphere was truly electric. Some of you may remember the late Ralph Gay. A founder member and an extraordinarily hilarious and grumpy character who acted in the capacity of Branch Administrator. After his untimely passing, I took over as Branch Administrator for a brief period whilst also setting up the UKIP vetting process. Thankfully, Ruth Purdie was able to take on the branches while I focused on vetting and candidates which is most likely how those of you who do recognise my name have come to know me. I must emphasise that having worked with the team at Lexdrum house, they really are an invaluable asset to our party. It is an honour to have been appointed by Gerard as your new Chairman and having worked closely with 3 former Chairmen now, I have a pretty good idea of what I’ve let myself in for. I can assure you that I will work hard to support the entire 23000+ strong UKIP team and we certainly have an awful lot to be working towards. For me, the thing that I believe should be at the top of everyone’s priority list is Brexit! The nation WILL be shafted in one way or another and the path is clear for us to save it but we have to do this NOW. UKIP has the only Brexit plan that is truly for the people! CLICK HERE to read it (if you haven’t already) and please share with everyone you know. I’d like us to get some Brexit Plan leaflets ready in the next couple of weeks to distribute to regions and branches but they aren’t cheap. We need to raise around £30,000 for printing costs and delivery to regions. If you would like to donate to this vital cause, please CLICK HERE. If you can’t donate financially but have an hour or two to spare, please get in touch with your branch and ask for information on getting involved with leaflets or canvassing. If you’re not sure who your branch chairman is, contact HQ on 01626 830630 or email membership@ukip.org Local elections are also just around the corner. It would be unrealistic and naive to expect us to have a candidate in each of the 8000 or so seats up for grabs, but we should try for at least half. If you are prepared to stand as a candidate, or even a paper candidate, please CLICK HERE to complete the short vetting form and let your branch chairman know that you’re ready. Of course, we still need to be prepared for the next General Election – whenever this may be. If you would like get started with the parliamentary candidate selection process, CLICK HERE but please note that you will need to be registered to myukip.com in order to access this page. We also need a strong campaign team and this is something I plan to get sorted straight away. I cannot stress just how important it is that the British public have an opportunity to vote for UKIP. Every vote against the establishment sends a clear message for Brexit. You may also be wondering – Where do I stand on Tommy Robinson? Well, I’ve taken a rather simplistic view, and while I agree it is an important issue that warrants discussion, right now, we should be united in our fight for one issue – BREXIT! We have all worked too hard to let Brexit be betrayed and we must put all other internal matters to one side until it is achieved. For this reason, I would not be inclined to allow membership of anyone from any proscribed group at this time. Having said that, I entirely believe that our Leader has every right to seek support and advice from whoever he wishes. Gerard is doing an incredible job and has made some excellent decisions which have indisputably saved our party. I say we let him get on with speaking to people from all walks of life, in the interests of policy development and contributing to our party’s strategies going forward. I’ve probably said more than enough now but I look forward to working with you all and I will try to keep you updated regularly and honestly.
Kind regards,
Kirstan Herriot Party Chairman
Regards, Greg_L-W.
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 44 (0)1594 – 528 337
Calls from ‘Number Withheld’ phones Are Blocked
All unanswered messages are recorded.
Leave your name & a UK land line number & I will return your call.
ALL MY BLOGS & WEB SITES are clearly sourced to me
I do NOT use an obfuscated eMail address to hide behind
I do NOT use or bother reading FaceBook
I DO have a Voice Mail Message System
I ONLY GUARANTEE to answer identifiable eMails
I ONLY GUARANTEE to phone back identifiable UK Land Line Messages
I do NOT accept phone calls from witheld numbers
I Regret due to BT in this area I have a rubbish Broadband connection
I AM opposed to British membership of The EU
I AM opposed to Welsh, Scottish or English Independence within an interdependent UK
I am NOT a WARMIST
I do NOT believe the IPCC Climate Propaganda re Anthropogenic Global Warming
I AM strongly opposed to the subsidy or use of failed technologies eg. WIND TURBINES
I AM IN FAVOUR of rapid research & development of NEW NUCLEAR technologies
I see no evidence to trust POLITICIANS at any level or of any persuasion
I do NOT believe in GODS singular or plural, Bronze Age or Modern
I value the NHS as a HEALTH SERVICE NOT a Lifestyle support
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial or GBH rape.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial, terrorist, mass or for pleasure murder.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial gross child abuse including sexual.
I do NOT trust or believe in armed police
I do NOT believe in prolonging human life beyond reasonable expectation of sentient participatory intellectual existence
I believe in EUTHENASIA under clearly defined & legal terms
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
minded of Ukip’s relationship with Gregory Lauder Frost & various extremist individuals I include this article & related corespondence on this website below.
Racist Bigots BANNED By Facebook
These are trying times for the Traditional Britain Group. Shunned by so many mainstream politicians after Jacob Rees Mogg was rightly castigated for appearing at their annual gathering, ridiculed over their head man Gregory “Lauder” Frost being exposed as a fraud for claiming to be 100% British when in fact he is an Australian immigrant, the last thing they needed was to fall foul of simple social media terms and conditions.
He’s not a Lauder. He’s not even a very naughty boy
But, sad to say, that is exactly what has happened to TBG. Facebook has decided that they can get along fine without this motley band of bigots and has slapped a 30 day ban on them. And rather than taking their punishment like good honest Brits (or, in the case of plain Greg Frost, pretend Brits) and learn from their experience, TBG has decided to kick off big time about being pushed around by these ghastly colonials.
“Facebook has today taken down the main Traditional Britain Group page for the second time and banned at least four page editors as well, without giving any reason or allowing any further appeal. Both occasions occurred when the page was just short of 50,000 ‘likes’. Everyone should be concerned by this gross violation of the fundamental right to freedom of speech” they protest. FREEZE PEACH! It’s about FREEZE PEACH!
There was more. Rather a lot more. “This follows a pattern by Facebook of not following its own declared processes to try to shield its clearly politically-driven tactics. The page was continually removed for instance when posts became too popular using the catch-all of ‘standards’ infractions and reinstated days later after ‘review’. But these notifications never indicated any infringing posts, removed anything, nor gave any individual admin penalties”.
Waaah! Snot fair! And more: “Unusually of late Facebook’s tactics have been ‘upgraded’. They now appear to be punishing multiple admins for a phantom post by an individual admin, for a period of up to a month, seemingly to seek to mothball the page. Incredibly these charlatans have recently declared that the Traditional Britain Group logo (our traditional English/British lion symbol) went against Facebook’s ‘standards’“.
They have? Why, the audacity! And guess what? “Using this ancient heraldic device as a means of removing the page, is a further outrage and shows the bankrupt moral atmosphere that prevails at Facebook and underlines that they will use any excuse to disrupt pages they politically disagree with. If it is not this, then clearly, once again, they have banned on a pure phantasm post that never existed”.
Etcetera etcetera etcetera, I shall write to the Times about this, I tell you! Finally came the inevitable empty threat: “It also makes sense to evaluate some ‘class action’ type response, that will force legal document disclosure from them”. Yeah, right. Greg Frost from Newcastle, NSW, and his not really upmarket B&B in the Scottish Borders won’t be funding a legal action any time soon. He’s all wind and piss.
The real – and welcome – news here is that Facebook has begun to clamp down on the bigots. For so long, those turfed off Twittercould take comfort in the fact that Facebook would still allow them to operate. Not any more.
The time of bigotry on Facebook was for a time, but not for all time. Rejoice!
Here is a copy of correspondence I had with Gregory Lauder Frost some years ago having published details of his prison sentence for having been found guilty of steeling a substantial amount of money from his employers – The NHS!
Your comments about me
Gregory Lauder-Frost <lauderfrost@btinternet.com>
Sat 29/09/2012, 23:06
Dear Mr Lance-Watkins,
I understand that in my absence my wife has seen your correspondence. She has deleted her rsponse so I hope that it was not offensive.
You do not have my consent to put up all over the internet my private correspondence by email or otherwise.
All I can say is that repeating a libel or a smear is not a defence in court. Journalists copy each other and you have copied them. That is not a defence. Also, I do not have to deconstruct with arguments everything you have put up on the world wide web courtesey of your website because I do not feel that I am in the wrong in 2012. You are the accuser and it you who will have to present your very clear evidence when the day comes. Telling the judge it was in “The Guardian” or in “Searchlight” etc., will be dismissed out of hand.
I have asked you to remove references to a court case of 20 years ago which is causing me and my family unnecessary and cruel difficulties.
Your personal views of me, whom you don’t know, are clearly political and I cannot ask you not to address anything political I may have said now or 20 years ago.
However the very personal attacks upon me and the attempt to destroy 20 years of the reconstruction of my life I can and will take action against as they are evil and wrong.
Thank you.
Gregory Lauder-Frost.
RE: Your comments about me
Greg Lance-Watkins
Sat 29/09/2012, 13:44 Gregory Lauder-Frost <lauderfrost@btinternet.com>
Hi,
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
I am glad to note you are taking my suggestion seriously.
That you saw my efforts to assist you, in the light of your threatening and abusive letter to me, as ‘vicious’ is clearly a figment of your imagination.
I presume from your comment you will permit your solicitor to answer my questions and address the matter of naming the individuals and publications that you define as ‘Marxist, and having published fantasies in respect of your criminal activities, for which I believe you were sentenced to prison, be that yesterday or 20 years ago, when in a position of trust as an adult.
Do I take it you will now cease harassing me for having reiterated facts published about you in the public domain both on the internet and in the mainstream media?
Do ensure you inform your solicitor that I have apologised for any inaccuracies I may have inadvertently reiterated on my blogs, and have asked you to be specific and identify them so that they can be corrected in the light of the substantiation you can provide.
I am sure you will also point out to your solicitor that I have offered you a right of reply also.
You have failed to address my offer to publish our correspondence so that your views and claims are given a fair airing – I shall therefore assume that you wish me to go ahead.
That you now claim that 99.5% of the facts placed on the internet are placed there by some nebulous organisation you define as ‘The Left’ and seem to have dropped your apparent claim of being the victim of ‘Marxists’ is this due to the fact that you were unable to identify any ‘Marxists’ who had written about you?
I trust your solicitor will be able to provide the facts related to your having silenced said reporters, be they ‘Marxist’ or ‘The Left’, and identifying them so as to protect you from being seen as an abusive bully, in the gratuitous nature of your attack on me, especially in the light of my efforts to assist you – inspite of the unpleasant nature of your letters to me.
I understand from your final sentence that your claim is that although what I published was in the public domain it was based on your criminality 20 years ago, and you accuse me of not addressing that fact, which of course is untrue as I stated that I believed that criminality placed in the public domain, related to an adult, should of course be considered a matter of public record, just as one is judged in many ways by ones associates.
I do admit I find myself in the fortunate position that I have never done anything of any consequence that would bring shame, or even embarrassment, to my family and have never stolen from my employers or received a custodial sentence for criminality. Interestingly despite the many lies about me published on the internet, which are a matter of record, I am unconcerned as despite the dishonesty of those who seek to defame me I have NEVER been shown to have lied or wittingly misled anyone. My blogs are always open to correction, if I have made a mistake, and I have always offered a right of reply – that some low lifes seek to try to defame me and have, in the case of Gerard Batten, Derek Clark, Tom Wise, Mark Croucher and others lied to the police and other authorities to try to defame me, and seemingly suppress the truth and seek enrichment by their dishonesty is also a matter of record yet it has been shown and proven that their claims are dishonest.
Be assured that I wish you no harm and merely report your actions over the years as published widely in the public domain – IF you have taken action to suppress these matters as they are untrue, perhaps you can show in what way and explain why you have failed – IF that is the case you can count on such assistance as I can give in righting what you claim to be a gross and dishonest wrong against you. Frankly from your attitude to date I incline to believe you are your own worst enemy and have made more of your criminality than would otherwise have been the case, causing continuous attention to your own lack of ethicality.
That you would seem to confirm that my postings on the internet were correct, and relate to your views and integrity, when so ere that may have been, what exactly is your problem and perhaps I can address it and assist you, inspite of your bullying and hectoring implied threats.
Regards,
Greg_L-W.
From: Gregory Lauder-Frost [lauderfrost@btinternet.com] Sent: 29 September 2012 10:58 To: Greg Lance-Watkins Subject: Re: Your comments about me
Thank you. I am sending this vicious letter to my solicitor.
Could I just add that never ever have I been engaged in “race-hatred” and there is no evidence for that. I was, as Secretary of the Conservative Monday Club until 1992, responsible for putting forward their policies on mass immigration to which we were opposed. There is a fundamental difference. 99.5% of everything on the internet has been placed there by The Left. Naturally it is designed to place me in a bad light.
You still fail to address the fact that all this was 20 years ago and has no relevance to 2012 whatsoever.
Firstly you have NOT previously written to me in the terms you claim.
You did once write to me, in a more than somewhat ill mannered and arrogant manner, demanding that I should provide you with the details of a web site over which I have no control and in which I have no material interest, though the facts it publishes would seem to be consistently accurate and both informed and well substantiated.
A quick viewing of the internet shows that your actions may well have brought shame on your family. Trying to make the blame for your family’s embarrassment; due to the fact that you were sentenced to prison for financial crimes and would seem to promote views that would seem to be based on race hatred and prejudice, as widely reported; is hardly my fault.
You might care to compare your criminal actions with my collation of public domain facts as published if it gives you some sort of sick comfort, by all means, it is a free world.
I will happily publish your substantive corrections and a commensurate apology for having reiterated the facts as widely published in the public domain if you wish, as I do everything I reasonably can, and often more, to ensure my various postings are true and as accurate as I can reasonably make them.
You gratuitously accuse me of being ‘exceptionally evil’ as you hypocritically lie to mislead in your letter and overlook that your ire would seem to be falsely based on my reporting of your widely reported criminality.
I also note the many entries you are associated with on the internet and also web sites where your prejudices and apparent xenophobic racism is more than apparent, yet you seek to berate me – how dare you you hate filled grubby little man!
Please be so good as to supply details of the ‘filth’ and ‘fantasies’ and identify the ‘Marxist’ journalists and the publications for which they work so that we can together bring to account those you claim to be dishonest Marxists by name. Please also advise what action you have taken against these individuals and thwe main stream media for whom they work as otherwise it will look as if you live down to expectation and seek to bully, threaten and abuse private individuals for reporting the facts published by others.
I repeat that I am happy to publish your reasonable demands for correction, where you are willing and able to show that you have taken action and won against the sources I have quoted who published the facts long ago and you have seemingly failed to address, if I have in any way misled anyone or acted unfairly please accept my apologise.
Please be so good as to ensure you list the errors of fact and on which blogs you believe the correction should be published.
I take it that as a first step publication of our correspondence might go some way to assist in ape your very clear threat, which I accept in the spirit of dishonesty and arrogance in which you seemingly issued it. If I have misunderstood your unpleasant little rant do let me know and accept my apologies – as I have said I merely seek accuracy and I am sure you would agree with me that any criminality should be and is a matter of public record, just as any form of race hatred or prejudice based upon race, colour or creed.
I trust I can count on your apology for the tone of your abuse and your full co-operation in the aims of my blog as stated.
If you wish do pass this letter to your solicitor so that he can more competently advise you.
Regards,
Greg_L-W.
From: Gregory Lauder-Frost [lauderfrost@btinternet.com] Sent: 28 September 2012 13:48 To: Greg Lance-Watkins Subject: Your comments about me
I wrote to you asking you to remove the very personal details about the court case 20 years ago, overturned by Judicial Review. You include lots of filth and fantasy stories in these reports by Marxist journalists. You have refused to do that.
Why you feel it is necessary to put this event of 20 years ago all over the internet and to make my children and my wife pariahs in society and at school I do not know. It is a truly shocking and despicable thing for anyone to do. I can only conclude that you must be an exceptionally evil individual.
I could understand it if you wished to attack my personal views and opinions. But what I cannot understand is why you are descending into the gutter with your very personal attacks on the world-wide internet. What have I ever done to you?
I am now reluctantly going to accept my solicitor’s advice and sue you for libel.
Gregory Lauder-Frost.
.
Regards, Greg_L-W.
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 44 (0)1594 – 528 337
Calls from ‘Number Withheld’ phones Are Blocked
All unanswered messages are recorded.
Leave your name & a UK land line number & I will return your call.
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
This is the response by Gerard Batten, leader of UKIP, to the proposed articles for a constitution for UKIP Wales (CLICK HERE):
“The Welsh ‘Grassroots Movement’ has no authority to propose or devise a UKIP Constitution for Wales.
The Party Chairman and I sanctioned a Welsh Committee on the basis that it would concern itself purely with helping in practical matters such as the organisation of branches, the identification of council election and Westminster parliamentary candidates and the raising of funds. It has no authority to do anything else.
Next week I will be visiting Wales to meet with the UKIP Assembly Members, including the UKIP political leader in Wales. I will tell them my plans for UKIP going forward and I expect them to tell me their plans for UKIP in Wales in accordance with our Constitution and Manifesto.
My message will be: there is no longer any time or effort to waste on infighting or jockeying for position. Either get behind the Party or get out.
I expect UKIP Wales to prepare itself for the next election in Wales in whatever form that may come.”
Regards, Greg_L-W.
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 44 (0)1594 – 528 337
Calls from ‘Number Withheld’ phones Are Blocked
All unanswered messages are recorded.
Leave your name & a UK land line number & I will return your call.
ALL MY BLOGS & WEB SITES are clearly sourced to me
I do NOT use an obfuscated eMail address to hide behind
I do NOT use or bother reading FaceBook
I DO have a Voice Mail Message System
I ONLY GUARANTEE to answer identifiable eMails
I ONLY GUARANTEE to phone back identifiable UK Land Line Messages
I do NOT accept phone calls from witheld numbers
I Regret due to BT in this area I have a rubbish Broadband connection
I AM opposed to British membership of The EU
I AM opposed to Welsh, Scottish or English Independence within an interdependent UK
I am NOT a WARMIST
I do NOT believe the IPCC Climate Propaganda re Anthropogenic Global Warming
I AM strongly opposed to the subsidy or use of failed technologies eg. WIND TURBINES
I AM IN FAVOUR of rapid research & development of NEW NUCLEAR technologies
I see no evidence to trust POLITICIANS at any level or of any persuasion
I do NOT believe in GODS singular or plural, Bronze Age or Modern
I value the NHS as a HEALTH SERVICE NOT a Lifestyle support
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial or GBH rape.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial, terrorist, mass or for pleasure murder.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial gross child abuse including sexual.
I do NOT trust or believe in armed police
I do NOT believe in prolonging human life beyond reasonable expectation of sentient participatory intellectual existence
I believe in EUTHENASIA under clearly defined & legal terms
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
2 UKIP Wales was formed at a Conference held at the Strand Hall, Builth Wells on 21st July 2018
3 Membership of UKIP Wales comprises all paid up members of UKIP who are:
domiciled in and registered as residing in Wales,
or who regularly attend UKIP Branch meetings in Wales
4 Objects:
1 to support and promote UKIP in all its endeavours and in particular:
(a) to provide candidates for elections to the Westminster Parliament, Welsh Assembly,
Local Authorities and the European Parliament
(b) to increase the membership of UKIP
(c) to raise funds for UKIP
(d) to campaign actively for UKIP
2 to operate within the Constitution and Rules of UKIP
3 to promote the formation of Regional and Constituency Branches in Wales
4 to mediate in the resolution of issues of conflict
5 to communicate with members
6 to develop policies for presentation to the Welsh Assembly
7 to consider National Policies affecting Wales and to advise accordingly
8 to draft Rules for electing candidates for the Welsh Assembly
9 to establish a 3 year rolling programme
5 The Governing Body of UKIP Wales shall be the Annual (or more frequent) General Meetings
of all paid up members of UKIP as defined in Article 3 above.
6 The Annual General Meeting shall:
1 elect a Wales Executive Committee comprising 15 members made up of 3 members from each of the 5 Regions in Wales as defined by the D’Hondt List System which applies at Assembly Elections and comprising the following constituencies:
North Wales Ynys Mon, Arfon, Aberconwy, Clwyd West, Vale of Clwyd,
Delyn, Alyn & Deeside, Wrexham and Clwyd South
Mid & West Wales Dwyfor Meirionedd, Ceredigion, Montgomery, Brecon & Radnor,
Carmarthen East & Dynefwr, Preseli Pembroke, Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire and Llanelli
South Wales West Gower, Swansea West, Swansea East, Neath, Aberavon, Ogmore and Bridgend
South Wales Central Vale of Glamorgan, Rhondda, Cynon Valley, Pontypridd, Cardiff West, Cardiff North, Cardiff Central and Cardiff South & Penarth
South Wales East Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney, Blaenau Gwent, Islwyn, Torfaen,
Caerphilly, Newport West, Newport East and Monmouth
(1) the 3 members from each Region shall be elected by the members present from that Region
(2) the first Regional representatives in each Region shall serve for 3 years, 2 years or 1 year
selection for any of the three terms shall be either by agreement, or by the drawing of straws
Regional representatives retiring by rotation may offer themselves for re-election
a casual vacancy shall be filled at the next General Meeting by the members present from the same Region electing a replacement to complete the term of the outgoing member
at subsequent Annual General Meetings the members from each Region shall elect one representative for a three year term
[A member of the Wales Executive Committee unable to attend a meeting shall be entitled to nominate a deputy on not more than 2 occasions within a twelve month period. The deputy shall be briefed by the elected Executive Committee member on issues to be dealt with. TO BE VOTED ON ]
2 receive a report from the Chairman of UKIP Wales
3 receive a report from the Treasurer on the state of the finances of UKIP Wales
4 receive reports from the Members of the Welsh Assembly
5 develop proposals for policies to be presented to the Welsh Assembly
6 develop proposals for policies to be adopted by UKIP nationally
7 The Annual General Meeting shall be held in February of each year
7 General Meetings:
1 Additional General Meetings may be called
in June of each year [after the usual election period of May and early June]
and October [after the National Conference and 6 months before the usual election period]
and at other times when considered necessary
2 A General Meeting may carry out any of the functions of the Annual General Meeting
3 Notice of a General Meeting and of the business to be transacted shall be sent to UKIP Members
in Wales at least 21 days in advance by email to those able to receive email
and otherwise (and if requested) by post
4 Failure of delivery of a Notice shall not invalidate the Meeting
5 The purpose of a General Meeting is:
to ensure that no-one can prevent participation by all UKIP Members in Wales
to provide a forum for all UKIP Members in Wales to meet and develop camaraderie
to facilitate development of Policy at all levels – Branch, Region and All Wales
to enable casual vacancies on the Wales Executive Committee to be filled without delay
8 The functions of the Wales Executive Committee:
1 the Wales Executive Committee shall elect from among its number a Chairman
Vice-Chairman and Secretary and such other officers as it thinks fit
2 it may appoint from outside its number a Treasurer and other officers
but such appointees shall not be entitled to vote
3 it may invite UKIP MEPs, MPs, AMs and Councillors to attend their meetings as guests
but such invitees shall not be entitled to vote
4 it shall meet regularly, and keep minutes in hard copy
distribution of minutes may be effected by electronic means
5 Notice of a meeting of the Wales Executive Committee shall be given at least 10 days in advance
details of the proposed Agenda shall be given at least 3 days in advance
6 The over-riding purpose of the WEC is to galvanise UKIP Wales into a force to be reckoned with
9 Confidence motions:
1 A General Meeting may pass a vote of no confidence in any member of the Wales Executive
Committee, or an unelected officer appointed by that Committee
2 The subject of a vote of no confidence shall vacate office with immediate effect
and shall not take any office for at least one year thereafter
3 Intended Motions of no confidence shall be communicated to all members
at least 21 days before the Meeting at which the Motion is to be tabled
10 The 5 Regional Branches:
1 The Constitution for Regional Branches is the same as for Constituency Associations
2 Each Regional Branch shall actively support the Objects of UKIP Wales set out in Article 4
3 Regional Branches shall hold regular meetings to which all members in the Region are invited
4 The Regional Branches will act as Regional Organisers for all Westminster and Welsh Assembly
elections in their respective Regions
11 The 3 levels, comprising:
1 the local Constituency Association (or Branch in the case of 2 or more Constituencies)
2 the Regional Branch
3 the UKIP Wales Conference (and its Wales Executive Committee)
are not hierarchical. Every UKIP member in Wales is a member at each level simultaneously.
The relationship between the three levels is one of co-operation and mutual support
for the purpose of furthering the aims of UKIP in Wales, and to that end:
The Regional Branch will never interfere with a Constituency Association which is fully functional
but will offer assistance where it is not
The Wales Executive Committee will never interfere with a Regional Branch which is fully functional
but will offer assistance where it is not
12 The Chairman of the Wales Executive Committee shall be the Leader of UKIP in Wales
[this is indicative only until there is a change of the UKIP constitution
currently the appointment of a Leader in Wales is by the National Leader Gerard Batten.]
One is forced, from experience, to wonder how long this will last before the squabbling breaks out – not long I would guess!
Regards, Greg_L-W.
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 44 (0)1594 – 528 337
Calls from ‘Number Withheld’ phones Are Blocked
All unanswered messages are recorded.
Leave your name & a UK land line number & I will return your call.
ALL MY BLOGS & WEB SITES are clearly sourced to me
I do NOT use an obfuscated eMail address to hide behind
I do NOT use or bother reading FaceBook
I DO have a Voice Mail Message System
I ONLY GUARANTEE to answer identifiable eMails
I ONLY GUARANTEE to phone back identifiable UK Land Line Messages
I do NOT accept phone calls from witheld numbers
I Regret due to BT in this area I have a rubbish Broadband connection
I AM opposed to British membership of The EU
I AM opposed to Welsh, Scottish or English Independence within an interdependent UK
I am NOT a WARMIST
I do NOT believe the IPCC Climate Propaganda re Anthropogenic Global Warming
I AM strongly opposed to the subsidy or use of failed technologies eg. WIND TURBINES
I AM IN FAVOUR of rapid research & development of NEW NUCLEAR technologies
I see no evidence to trust POLITICIANS at any level or of any persuasion
I do NOT believe in GODS singular or plural, Bronze Age or Modern
I value the NHS as a HEALTH SERVICE NOT a Lifestyle support
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial or GBH rape.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial, terrorist, mass or for pleasure murder.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial gross child abuse including sexual.
I do NOT trust or believe in armed police
I do NOT believe in prolonging human life beyond reasonable expectation of sentient participatory intellectual existence
I believe in EUTHENASIA under clearly defined & legal terms
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
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Ukip-vs-EUkip 