a number of us who had been active campaigners for BreXit, indeed some of us had actively campaigned against the First Referendum in the early 1970s and even against any efforts to join the EU, or as it was then aesopianly named ‘The Common Market’, long before that – I for one had been opposed to Britain becoming a member of the so called ‘Common Market’ since the early 1960s.
My opposition to membership pre dated but was much resolved by living in Germany in C1962, though it does not pre date the British Government’s advocacy of 16-Apr-1948 (as I was living in India at the time in Karachi, pre partitition & Switzerland then Bahrain after partition! That I was only 2 when it was published is a minor detail!)) in Cmd.7388 being an official White Paper of The Foreign Office regarding/titled: “Convention for European Economic Co-operation”.
Some may remember the front page of The Times on the day of the Coronation of 1953 and the detailed article regarding the Common Market & Britain’s incolvement and naiscent membership (The day of the Coronation being a #Good day on which to bury bad news’ – similarly the most prescient speech by Enoch Powell on 25-Feb-1970 in the House of Commons during the Union of Europe debate CLICK HERE for the text It was largly after this speech that much effort was made to try to discredit Enoch Powell by dishonestly and selectively misrepresenting his Birmingham Speech of 20-Apr-1968 in an effort to try to portray him as some kind of reactionary racist, which he clearly was not if you read or listen to him delivering the speech CLICK HERE for full text & his contemporary delivery of the speech.
As I said many of us cautioned that the involvement of the overtly racist Ukip as a party and the untrustworthy used car salesman approach of the philandering, corrupt and libertine Nigel Farage, with his morally bankrupt and totally unethical efforts to prevent a Referendum to Leave the EU brought about by the efforts and organisation of The Petition of 225,000 signatures, by Nikki Sinclaire, that forced the debate of an IN/OUT Referendum in the House of Commons. Together with the clearly ‘dodgey’ and financially and morally dubious liar Arron Banks and the untrustworthy clique of low lifes they gatherted around them was unwise in the extreme and would eventually be very damaging to BreXit.
So it has proven with the clear involvement of Cambridge Analytica and Russian money + the dishonest methods of campaigning borrowed (bought) from the Trump campaign strategists such as Steve Bannon and Breitbart!
Leave.EU, Arron Banks and new questions about referendum funding
Revealed: Leave donor faces data investigation as first documentary evidence of Cambridge Analytica Brexit ‘work’ uncovered
Arron Banks,second from right, with Brittany Kaiser of Cambridge Analytica, far right, at the launch of Leave.EU. Photograph: Reuters
The Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating Leave.EU and its donor Arron Banks over possible breaches of the Data Protection Act.
The ICO has issued “information notices” against both Leave.EU – the referendum campaign headed by Nigel Farage – and its director, Banks. The notices – requiring organisations to provide the ICO with specified information within a certain time period – were issued in the same week as the ICO conducted raids last month on Cambridge Analytica’s offices. The notices are both part of Operation Cederburg – the commissioner’s year-long investigation into the use of data in the EU referendum. Failure to comply is a criminal offence.
Banks – who was by far the biggest funder of Brexit, providing £8.4m in donations and loans – confirmed on Friday that both he personally and Leave.EU had received “information notices”. In an email on Friday, Banks said they were “responding to it’” He said the ICO’s action was not an “investigation” but “an information request”.
In a separate development, the Observer has obtained an invoice that Cambridge Analytica issued on 14 December 2015 for £41,500 for work it undertook on behalf of Ukip. The invoice says the payment is for “analysis of Ukip membership and survey data and creative product development”, and it is issued on behalf of Cambridge Analytica LLC, the American entity, from its office in Alexandria, Virginia. This is the first documentary evidence that Cambridge Analytica did conduct analytics work on behalf of one of the Leave campaigns in the period before the referendum.
Banks confirmed to the Observer that he was also sent the invoice at that time too. He said he subsequently made a donation for the amount to cover the invoice to Ukip. A spokesman for Ukip, speaking to the Guardian last month, denied any payment for the work was made but he confirmed Banks had in fact made the donation after “new information had come to light”. He said that the party decided not to pass on the money to Cambridge Analytica.
Banks has long denied that Cambridge Analytica did any work for Leave.EU, as has Cambridge Analytica. The question is still the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Electoral Commission. In a written submission to the select committee for the department for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) last month, Banks said he had met Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica but that he had declined to take him up on his proposal. Cambridge Analytica said on Saturday that it “did some preliminary analysis as part of a proposal to work with Ukip, but no contract was agreed, payment was not made to CA, and the preliminary work was not delivered to Ukip.”
Brittany Kaiser, a former Cambridge Analytica director, who appeared on a panel at Leave.EU’s launch event, came forward to the Guardian last month and raised further questions about these claims. She said the company had completed around £40,000 worth of work for Ukip, using Ukip data, but agreed that the company had not been paid. She is expected to talk about this on Tuesday when she will testify to parliament as part of the DCMS committee into fake news.
Ukip has confirmed it handed its database over to Cambridge Analytica. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
A Ukip spokesman told the Observer on Friday: “We got the money from Arron [Banks]. But we never paid it to Cambridge Analytica. We didn’t think it was worth it. It was preparatory work, a pitch.”
He also confirmed that the party had handed over its database of roughly 40,000 supporters to Cambridge Analytica despite denying this to the Guardian last month.
Ukip had told the Guardian previously that Cambridge Analytica “saw” the data but a spokesman admitted the information – including telephone numbers, email addresses, ages, and other personal information among other things – was given to the company on a computer as part of what he described as “preparatory work”.
The spokesman said: “I asked everyone about this work and I was told CA pitched for it, Banks didn’t like it and he’d refused to pay for it. It’s now come out that he did actually make a donation to cover the cost of the work. But we never actually handed it over.”
The revelations raise a whole new set of questions about how the referendum was funded and whether strict rules on spending may have been broken. The Observer has seen evidence which suggests that a form of the Ukip data that Cambridge Analytica analysed and processed was passed to individuals in the Leave.EU campaign. And a donation of £42,000 from Better for the Country, Leave.EU’s registered company name, was recorded as a political donation to the party on the Electoral Commission’s site one week before the referendum on 16 June 2016. It was not registered as part of the campaign by either entity as a referendum donation or expense.
The unfolding of the Cambridge Analytica scandal has coincided with the final stages of the information commissioner’s investigation into the use of data in the referendum. Leave.EU’s operation has become one focus of the year-long investigation. Another resulted in the ICO’s raid on Cambridge Analytica. Damian Collins, the Tory MP for Folkestone, who is the chair of the DCMS committee, has told the Observer that both Britain’s electoral and data laws needed a radical and urgent overhaul. He said it was “ridiculous” that the ICO had to wait five days before being able to get a warrant to seize Cambridge Analytica’s computer servers and equipment.
Separately, the ICO investigation is believed to be trying to understand the relationship between Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance Services, the Bristol-based insurance company that Banks owns and that was the HQ for Leave.EU referendum campaign work. A spokesman said: “Leave.EU and Eldon have never shared any data. And Leave.EU has never shared any data with Cambridge Analytica whether in relation to the EU referendum or otherwise.”
The ICO may be asking questions because of previous comments Banks has made, including in an interview a year ago with the Observer. When asked about the use of Leave.EU’s database to send advertisements about his insurance products to campaign supporters, Banks said: “Why shouldn’t I? It’s my data.” When asked again last week, he said: “Leave.EU after the referendum campaign carried the occasional ad for insurance, so what?”
In an email on Friday he said: “Eldon has never given or used any data to Leave.EU. They are separate entities with strong data control rules. And vice versa.” He added: “Make any mistakes relating to the business and we will be most assuredly coming after the Guardian & you.”
To view the original article CLICK HERE
Regards,
Greg_L-W.
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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
Looks Like Nigel Farage’s Ukip Has Been Caught Stealing From The Public Purse AGAIN! Once again they drag the name & values of British politics into the gutter with them!
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.
Hi,
having watched and studied efforts made, including lies in Court & manipulation of Police by Nigel Farage’s dishonest crew, aiming at framing individuals, with their false testimony and bullying, I do admit that I am unsurprised at this report.
Would that I had the clout the EU has to force them to honour the court ruling and repay the money they owe me and I do believe they owe Nikki Sinclaire 10s if not 100s of £1,000s for their conspiracy to ensnare her in their utterly dishonest efforts as it would seem they managed (so far) with Jasna Badzak.
I guess there is a possibility that what goes around comes around and their own corruption, lies and dishonesty are catching up with them. In fact I hear from OLAF today
that they are actually investigating suspect spending of upto £20Million in Ukip under Nigel Farage’s leadership and we still have not seen the outcome of
Stuart Agnew and
David Bannermann’s embezling as reported by The Times or the laundering of donations by Stuart Agnew and Nigel Farage via
Lord Pearson’s company!
EU set to ask Ukip group to repay almost £150,000 in ‘misspent funds’
Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe is accused of misspending EU funds on party workers and Farage’s bid to become MP
Nigel Farage in the European parliament in Strasbourg. Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters
Ukip is likely to be asked to repay tens of thousands of euros by European parliament finance chiefs who have accused the party of misspending EU funds on party workers and Nigel Farage’s failed bid to win a seat in Westminster.
The Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, a Ukip-dominated political vehicle, will be asked to repay €173,000 (£148,000) in misspent funds and denied a further €501,000 in EU grants for breaking European rules that ban spending EU money on national election campaigns and referendums.
According to a European parliament audit report seen by the Guardian, Ukip spent EU funds on polling and analysis in constituencies where they hoped to win a seat in the 2015 general election, including the South Thanet seat that party leader Farage contested. The party also funded polls to gauge the public mood on leaving the EU, months before the official campaign kicked off in April 2016.
“These services were not in the interest of the European party, which could neither be involved in the national elections nor in the referendum on national level,” concluded the parliament’s finance watchdog.
“The constituencies selected for many of the polls underline that the polling was conducted in the interest of Ukip. Most of the constituencies can be identified as being essential for reaching a significant representation in the House of Commons from the 2015 general election or for a positive result for the leave campaign,” the report continued.
The ADDE also used EU funds for polling ahead of the Scottish and Welsh elections in 2016, the report said.
Summarising, the report stated: “The administration discovered a substantial number of activities for which financing ought to be considered as non-eligible expenditure.”
Ukip rejected allegations it had broken EU rules. “We have abided by the rules at all times,” a party spokesman said. The ADDE has been contacted for comment.
The report suggests the ADDE would go bankrupt without these funds, a further problem for the cash-strapped Eurosceptic group. European parties are only entitled to EU grants if they can prove they have other sources of income, such as membership dues and donations.
If the report is approved by European parliament leaders on Monday, the ADDE will be asked “to propose measures for financial improvement” within a month.
The ADDE is a pan-European political party dominated by Ukip, but includes MEPs from Germany’s hard-right Alternative for Deutschland and one former member of France’s Front National. The pan-European party has a far lower profile than the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, another Ukip-dominated group that manages the daily business of Farage’s party and his allies in the European parliament. Both have become significant sources of funding for Ukip.
Of the ADDE’s 35 members, 15 are Ukip MEPs, including Farage, as well as the frontrunner to replace him, Paul Nuttall. Steven Woolfe is listed as a member on the ADDE website, although he quit Ukip last month after a public altercation with a fellow MEP that left him in hospital.
The report names three Ukip party workers who were given contracts to run Ukip opinion polls said to be funded by EU money.
The report says Christopher Lowe, better known as Chris Bruni-Lowe, Sam Gould and Daryll Pitcher were found to have done consultancy work for Ukip while being active party workers – a breach of EU rules, according to the report.
Chris Lowe received €87,000 over six months in 2015 from Ukip, while he was the party’s campaign director, according to the report. Sam Gould, Ukip campaign manager for the Welsh elections and a parliamentary candidate, was given €25,000 between June and September 2015. Daryll Pitcher, another Ukip parliamentary candidate, benefitted from contracts worth €21,000 over the same period.
The report does not suggest the three men were aware they could be receiving unauthorised funds. From the work of the three consultants it was “obvious that the principal objective and the core activity of Ukip concerned the EU referendum”. The analysis from the polls “was indisputably useful for Ukip” and “the financing of these polls and the thereto linked activities shall be considered as non-eligible.
“The expenditure related to them is found non-eligible as the consultants were paid for an activity that was predominantly or even purely in the interest of the national party Ukip and therefore are considered as prohibited.”
The report covers 2015, so does not include the period of the EU referendum in June, or the frenzied weeks of campaigning in the spring and summer of this year. The ADDE is still entitled to €820,000 in EU funds for 2015.
The report will be presented to the European parliament’s most senior MEPs at a closed session on Monday night in Strasbourg. The committee, chaired by European parliament president, Martin Schulz, is expected to approve the request for repayment.
The total €500,000 in denied expenses includes €23,000 that will be refused to Belgium’s People’s party, another ADDE member accused of misspending.
Parliamentary auditors are also seeking €34,000 from the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe, a Ukip-affiliated pan-European thinktank. In this case, a Dutch political party is accused of misspending EU funds on a referendum in the Netherlands. Dutch voters rejected closer ties with Ukraine in April, in a vote seen as a victory for Eurosceptics months before the Brexit decision.
The report was drawn up as part of the annual checks on EU party finance. Other pan-European parties were given a clean bill of health earlier this year, but parliamentary authorities opened an investigation into Ukip after independent auditors refused to sign off the accounts.
The EU has been funding pan-European political parties since 2004 in an attempt to boost interest in European parliament elections. Parties are entitled to grants for conferences and European elections, but not national elections or referendums. Consultants are also meant to be independent from the parties they are working for.
Ukip spokesman Gawain Towler rejected the report’s central claim that the party and ADDE group had failed to comply with EU rules. “We have been scrupulously careful and we have abided by the rules at all times.” Asked about the named individuals, he repeated: “We have abided by the rules at all times.”
He questioned the timing of the report, which he said neither Ukip nor the ADDE group had seen. “I do think it seems odd … You received this before we did and [the ADDE] did.”
Joe Jenkins, an ADDE spokesman, accused the European parliament of trying to shut down the pan-European party and said the group would contest the claims in the European court of justice.
“The parliament administration has for months taken an aggressive and hostile attitude over the audit, amounting to nothing short of deliberate harassment,” he said in a statement.
“We have responded to their queries with a mass of information and explanation justifying our activities and expenditure. They have simply ignored our submissions and in several cases these submissions having been made repeatedly on their request.”
“They have broadened the definition of “expenditure supporting a political party” so widely as to deny us the right to undertake any activity which might be remotely interesting to ADDE members.”
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
Revisiting Neil Hamilton’s Clear Unsuitability For any Office & Nigel Farage’s self serving and insecure Duplicity!
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.
Hi,
after 20 years watching and paying attention to Ukip and having written something well over 3,000 blogs bringing people the facts and the truth, about Ukip behind the scenes, sometimes it is just too tedious to pull together yet another article about such a predictable bunch of self serving scoundrels and ne’r do wells as they squabble like ferretts in a sack.
We noted that Susanne Evans was unceremoniously dumped as deputy leader, it would seem this time that although it was undemocratic it did have two gains for Nigel Farage rather than his normal single fear of his ego being damaged by someone competent enough to challenge him!
This time it seems she was also dumped as it would reduce the possible claim that Vote Leave had cross party support – so now all Farage has to do is manage to find a way for one of his cronies to stab Douglas Carswell in the back and Farage would seem to think it will improve the chances of his two pronged efforts with Leave.EU and ‘Grassroots Out’ will have a better chance of getting theri hands on the Government money for the Referendum!
Meanwhile it would seem his efforts to unseat Neil Hamilton are proving something of a failure – I cautioned against Ukip having anything to do with the oleagenous and duplicitous self serving Hamilton’s before Farage brought him on board.
There is nothing new I can be bothered to write about the sordid publicity seeking pair so I shall cheat and use an article from elsewhere, to reitterate the many points I have flagged up in the past:
UKIP’s Welsh Meltdown
While much of the party’s energy is focused on the upcoming referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP also have local Government elections to fight, and the latter includes elections to the Welsh Assembly Government. Here, the Kippers face controversy over one potential candidate, former Tory MP Mostyn Neil Hamilton.
Hamilton claims to be “a proud Welshman”, and he did indeed grow up in the area around Carmarthen, before taking his first degree at Aberystwyth. But his Parliamentary career was as MP for Tatton, the constituency centred on the Cheshire town of Knutsford. He and wife Christine lived for many years at Nether Alderley, also in Cheshire, before moving to Wiltshire. His recent connection to Wales is therefore tenuous.
So the appearance of an anonymous leaflet passing severely adverse comment on Hamilton should not surprise anyone. Nor should any reference to his downfall at the 1997 General Election at the hands of independent candidate Martin Bell, in the wake of Hamilton’s collapsed libel action against theGuardian, over the claim of former Harrods boss Mohamed “you can call me Al” Fayed that Hamilton took “cash for questions”.
No-one should be surprised if UKIP members in Wales are reminded of the Guardian’s main headline the day after Hamilton’s legal capitulation: “A liar and a cheat”. Nor would it be any surprise to see his failed libel action against Fayed revisited, with the late George Carman QC describing Hamilton as “On the make, and on the take”. The cash for those questions was, according to Fayed, paid in used notes and in brown envelopes.
Hamilton has told of “This libellous leaflet recycled a Guardian newspaper cutting from 1996, falsely claiming I took large sums of money as an MP to ask parliamentary questions … The Inland Revenue dismissed these allegations as lies after their top forensic accountants (the Special Compliance Office) completed an exhaustive two-year investigation of all Christine’s and my financial affairs during ten tax years, 1987-97”.
But then, if money was paid in used notes and in brown envelopes, there would be nothing for the tax authorities to find. Indeed, Gordon Downey’s inquiry into the “cash for questions” affair found that the evidence Hamilton took cash from Fayed for asking questions “compelling”. One should also note that the Guardian article published after Hamilton’s libel action collapsed is still available online – and unaltered.
Neil Hamilton also misled Michael Heseltine over payments from lobbyist Ian Greer. He lobbied for the US tobacco industry. He joined the cause of the Apartheid régime in South Africa. He routinely failed to register payments and hospitality, including stays at the Hôtel Ritz in Paris. He stood accused of taking a £10,000 payment from Mobil Oil to table an amendment to the 1989 Finance Bill, while a member of a Commons select committee.
Neil Hamilton can protest all he likes at the actions of those in UKIP who are unhappy about his potential candidacy. But his record and reputation is there for all to see, as is his over-zealous recourse to libel actions, which left him with a £3 million bill and facing bankruptcy. He is a thoroughly unsavoury character and anyone in UKIP who seeks to bring this to a wider audience is to be commended.
He also had to drop out of the running for prospective candidate for the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency in December 2014 according to The Guardian due to a letter from the party’s finance and resources committee challenging some of his expenses claims.
From the same article “Senior figures in Ukip had previously worked hard to successfully prevent the former Conservative MP becoming a candidate in Boston and Skegness, and managed to prevent him from becoming an MEP.”
Have ambition to become MP will travel anywhere in the UK?
One wonders who is driving force here, NH or his wife Christine?
Three short sentences in the Guardian article sum up the arrogance and hubris of Mostyn Neil Hamilton perfectly:
“Another MP, Tim Smith, resigned his post as a Northern Ireland minister after he was accused in the same article of taking undeclared cash. He immediately admitted the Guardian story was true. Mr Hamilton, MP for Tatton, had instead tried to tough it out before resigning under pressure from Mr Major.”
To view the original of this article and the comments CLICK HERE
Here is the full front page Guardian article from 01-Oct-1996
A liar and a cheat
David Hencke, David Leigh and David Pallister
Tuesday 1 October 1996 11.43 BST Last modified on Tuesday 5 January 2016 23.08 GMT
Neil Hamilton, the disgraced former minister, yesterday walked away in humiliation from a £10 million libel suit against the Guardian over the “cash for questions” scandal hours before the case was due to start today.
The former trade minister abandoned the case and agreed to pay some of the Guardian’s costs after a bitter two-year battle. He had recruited 421 Conservative MPs and peers, including Lady Thatcher, Lord Archer and cabinet members to change a 300-year-old law, which had prevented him, as an MP, bringing his action.
Ian Greer, the parliamentary lobbyist, also dropped his claim, part of the same libel suit, just minutes before a legal deadline to do so. He, too, agreed to pay some of the paper’s costs.
The Guardian stated on October 20, 1994, that Mr Hamilton had received thousands of pounds for asking parliamentary questions for Mohamed Al Fayed’s Harrods group. Mr Greer, who had been retained by Mr Al Fayed, was identified as the middleman.
Another MP, Tim Smith, resigned his post as a Northern Ireland minister after he was accused in the same article of taking undeclared cash. He immediately admitted the Guardian story was true. Mr Hamilton, MP for Tatton, had instead tried to tough it out before resigning under pressure from Mr Major.
The settlement, on the eve of what was labelled the libel trial of the century, came after a dramatic weekend of legal developments. Those began when the government disclosed crucial documents to the Guardian. The papers led to Mr Greer and Mr Hamilton falling out, and a conflict of interest developing. Mr Greer’s accounts were also in the newspaper’s possession. The stories you need to read, in one handy email Read more
The Guardian also served on the men’s lawyers three statements from employees of Mr Al Fayed. They said Mr Hamilton and Mr Greer regularly called for envelopes stuffed with £50 notes in return for parliamentary lobbying.
Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, said: “The decision by Neil Hamilton and Ian Greer must be one of the most astonishing legal cave-ins in the history of the law of libel.”
He called for the trial papers to be examined by John Major, Sir Gordon Downey, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and the Inland Revenue.
Although hampered by the law on what evidence it can publish, the Guardian today reveals the extent of Mr Hamilton’s covert links with Mr Greer. It also details the network of MPs linked to Mr Greer, including Mr Smith, Sir Michael Grylls, chairman of the backbench trade and industry committee, Sir Peter Hordern, MP for Horsham, and Sir Andrew Bowden, MP for Brighton Kemptown. Advertisement
It was because the Guardian had subpoenaed Mr Major and Michael Heseltine to give evidence in the case that the government handed over key documents to the newspaper’s lawyers, Geoffrey Robertson, QC, and Geraldine Proudler. It would have been the first time this century a serving prime minister had appeared in the libel courts.
The trial would have re-opened the vexed question of parliamentary sleaze during the Tory party conference, and only a year after the government had made strenuous efforts to bury the issue. It implemented the Nolan Committee report and appointed a new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to handle complaints about MPs.
Of the embarrassing climb-down by both men, Mr Rusbridger said: “Both Hamilton and Greer knew that the evidence the Guardian had obtained would have blown their action out of the water and revealed a pattern of parliamentary sleaze more far reaching than anyone had ever imagined.
“The Guardian has never doubted the truth of its original story. We would have produced damning evidence of Mr Hamilton and Mr Greer’s lack of integrity if the case had proceeded. No doubt that is why they dropped the action.
“The Greer accounts and the government documents tell an outrageous story of corruption which the public should know but which we are prevented, for legal reasons, from publishing.”
Mr Hamilton said he was ‘devastated’ at having to withdraw. He claimed he was innocent, but because of the conflict of interest with Mr Greer, each had to instruct new solicitors and counsel. Advertisement
“The consequence of this is that the trial would have had to have been postponed to enable new sets of lawyers to go through the huge volume of papers and prepare the case afresh at enormously increased cost.”
His costs were already £150,000, and he did not have the cash to continue.
Mr Greer said: “I would want to continue on a matter of principle, but I have had to take a sensible commercial decision and I am happy a compromise has been reached.”
A spokesman for Mr Al Fayed said: “He was looking forward to telling the court of his experience of dealing with a number of Conservative MPs who describe themselves as “honourable members”. He will be sending his papers on the matter to Sir Gordon Downey.”
Downing Street last night insisted that the end of the libel action was purely a “matter between Mr Hamilton and the Guardian”.
Damning evidence
Sometimes he (Mr Greer) would ask me bluntly whether Mr Al Fayed had his money ready. Mr Hamilton was as persistent as Mr Greer, if not more so, in asking for his envelope.
Mohamed Al Fayed’s ex-personal assistant
I remember on several occasions that prior to a meeting with Mr Hamilton, Mr Al Fayed would make a remark… that he was coming to collect his money and would prepare an envelope for him with a bundle of £2,500 (in) notes in my presence.
Mr Al Fayed’s secretary
On at least two occasions when I was sitting at the front desk, an envelope was brought down to me from Mr Al Fayed’s office and I was informed that Mr Hamilton would be stopping by to collect the envelope.
Mr Al Fayed’s security man
Also there is the Guardian article of 22-Dec-1999:
A greedy, corrupt liar
Hamilton faces ruin after jury unanimously finds he took cash for questions
Hamilton, Al Fayed libel trial
Matt Wells, Jamie Wilson and David Pallister
Wednesday 22 December 1999 12.07 GMT Last modified on Monday 18 January 2016 14.27 GMT
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Shares 13 Save for later Neil Hamilton’s five-year fight to clear his name ended in ignominious defeat and financial ruin last night when a high court jury unanimously declared the former Conservative MP corrupt.
The result ended any hopes he may have harboured of resuming his political career, condemning him as a greedy man who had been “on the make and on the take” during his time in parliament.
The verdict, delivered in the highly-charged atmosphere of a crowded court 13 at the high court in London, was a dramatic finale to the bruising five-week libel trial brought by the former minister against the owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed. It brought to an end his protracted battle to clear his name of the cash-for-questions controversy first reported by the Guardian in 1994.
After almost nine hours of deliberation, the jury returned to court yesterday to deliver its verdict. Asked whether members had found “on the balance of probabilities” that Mr Fayed had established corruption by Mr Hamilton “on highly convincing evidence”, their forewoman replied: “Yes.”
Sitting in the front of the court, Mr Hamilton and his distraught wife, Christine, looked on with disbelief. She held her face in her hands and he repeatedly shook his head. As the jury filed out, the couple stared intensely at them and then retreated through the corridors of the court to consult with their lawyers.
As the Hamiltons continued to protest their innocence of corruption, outside the court Mr Fayed – who had been accused of being “the biggest crook in town” and a Jekyll and Hyde character – arrived jubilant. Bowing on the steps of the court, he wished everyone a merry Christmas. Of Mr Hamilton, he said: “He knows he is corrupt. People like that should never be in power.” The stories you need to read, in one handy email Read more
Mr Hamilton sued Mr Fayed over claims he made in a Dispatches documentary broadcast on Channel 4 in 1997 that the former MP had demanded and received thousands of pounds in cash, Harrods gift vouchers and hospitality at the Ritz hotel in Paris, in return for parliamentary services. Mr Fayed pleaded justification – that the allegations were true.
The clinching piece of evidence in the case – introduced on subpoena only days before the trial began – concerned Mr Hamilton’s claim that he had a legitimate consultancy with Mobil Oil in 1989.
It later emerged that he had done little more for the company than to table an amendment to that year’s finance bill, for which he later demanded payment. Under ancient parliamentary rules taking cash solely for parliamentary action is corrupt. Advertisement
Minutes before the jury said it was ready to deliver the verdict, its members were still divided: in a note to the judge, they asked whether they could disregard the adjective “highly” in the question put to them about convincing evidence. The judge refused their request.
Emerging from the court Mr Hamilton faced journalists with a grim smile.
With his wife beside him, he said: “I would never have embarked on this action had I been guilty of the charges against me. I do not regret bringing the case, of course, because I could not have gone through life without straining every sinew to do everything that was possible to bring the truth out. Sadly the jury were not convinced,” he said.
“The waters were muddied at the very beginning of the trial when, onto Mr Fayed’s allegations were clamped entirely unrelated ones connected to a consultancy I had with Mobil Oil. It may well be from the questions the jury asked the judge during the trial, that that is what has secured this verdict.”
Asked about the future, he simply said: “It is the beginning of a new road, I’m not sure where it leads but I will find out.”
For the first time his formidable wife, who has fiercely protected him since the allegations first broke, had no ready riposte. Asked how she had felt throughout the epic trial, she said: “I can’t tell you that now, but I will.”
Any hopes that Mr Hamilton may have harboured about a return to the political scene have now been utterly dashed. Conservative party chairman Michael Ancram was among the first to comment. “I have noted the verdict of the jury and I hope that this is the end of a sad and unpleasant episode which has been damaging to our party,” he said. Advertisement
“I trust that the personalities involved will now retire from the scene. They certainly can expect little understanding from this party if they do not.”
Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, called for Mr Hamilton to make an apology to the newspaper over accusations he made against Guardian journalists.
“Neil Hamilton has now been found guilty by both Parliament and the courts,” he said. “Today’s verdict vindicates the Guardian’s reporting of this case. The jury has found that Neil Hamilton is corrupt.
“The Guardian’s reporting exposed the mire of MPs on the take in the mid to late eighties and led to the setting up of the Nolan Commission into standards in public life. Our original reporting has never been shaken despite the slurs of Mr Hamilton, his friends and his legal team. The Guardian never doubted the integrity of its journalists, who deserve an apology from Neil Hamilton.”
You will also note the degree of indebtedness of the Hamiltons who went spectacularly bankrupt dishonouring their debts to many to the tune of over £3M. CLICK HERE
Yet little or nothing is said of this despite the fact that a full on assault was made on Nikki Sinclaire over her discharged bankruptcy amounting to a few £1,000s over a propertyy deal which was eventually resolved and with the full knowledge of the party at the time!
I guess it all depend if Nigel Farage sees you as a threat to his snout in the troughs on the EU gravy train! Most clearly he saw Nikki Sinclaire as a threat as she clamoured for Ukip transparency and published her detailed accounts as an MEP whilst actively persuing efforts to expose EU corruption and obtain the signatures for her petition that eventually forced David Cameron to hold a debate in Parliament and then grant the promise of an IN OUT EU promise – activities Ukip has consistently failed to do in 23 years!
Desperate efforts and apparent conspiracies seem to have taken place to set up and damage Nikki Sinclaire and her anti EU activities, yet Nigel Farage welcomed Neil Hamilton with open arms – I guess the affinity may have something to do with ‘Birds of a feather …..’ whilst the attacks on Sinclaire may well be based on a genuine fear of exposure and the truth!
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Regards,
Greg_L-W.
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Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
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Ukip was founded in 1993 & Nigel_Farage’s lack of leadership qualities & dictatorial behaviour capped with Bullying, Lies & Spin Continues To Fail Ukip In Domestic Politics …
Whenever things are going badly for Ukip, Nigel Farage’s cheeky chappy persona slips, and a rather more snarling and unpleasant character is revealed.
Today was one such occasion, after the party’s heavy defeat in the Oldham West and Royton by-election last night.
Before last night, Farage predicted that Ukip would come “within a few hundred votes” of Labour in the seat and could even win it. In the end they fell short of victory by over 10,000 votes with Labour significantly increasing their share of the vote from last May.
However, rather than seek to understand why the people of Oldham had so roundly rejected his party, Farage instead decided to suggest the result had been “bent” by ethnic minorities living in the area.
In multiple interviews, he insisted that mass immigration and the increase of ethnic minorities meant democracy had “died” in parts of Britain.
He repeatedly cited a report he claimed to have read in the Guardian last Saturday.
“The northern correspondent of the Guardian wrote last Saturday that she knocked on the doors of a street in Oldham where nobody spoke English, nobody had ever heard of Jeremy Corbyn, but they were all voting Labour,” he told the BBC.
“So there is a very large ethnic vote in this country in our inner cities. They vote Labour indeed and in one of the boxes last night it was 99% Labour and almost the electoral process is now dead in those areas.”
He went on:
“What I’m saying is that mass immigration, the change to our demographics in Britain… is fundamentally changing politics. The system is widely open to fraud and there is an ethnic element to British elections which we’ve never seen before.”
He also made the same claim on the Today programme this morning.
“There was an interesting report in the Guardian last Saturday where their Northern correspondent knocked on doors on a street and no-one spoke English. They didn’t even know who Jeremy Corbyn was but they were going to vote Labour. So there are some really quite big ethnic changes now in the way people are voting.”
Now before I get into the substance of Farage’s argument, it’s worth actually taking a look at the article he referred to in all his interviews this morning.
The Guardian’s Northern editor is a journalist called Helen Pidd. You can read the article she wrote about the Oldham by-election last Saturday in full here.
As you can see, there is absolutely no mention of a street where “nobody spoke English, nobody had ever heard of Jeremy Corbyn, but they were all voting Labour.”
There is one woman quoted who had not heard of Corbyn and another man quoted who had heard of him, didn’t like him, but was still voting Labour because of the local candidate.
There is a tweet Pidd sent separately in which she refers to non-English speaking Labour voters. However, there was absolutely no mention of an entire street of Labour-voting ethnic minority voters not being able to speak English either in her Guardian report or elsewere. Nor was this mentioned in any of the other reports Pidd filed from the seat.
Farage’s story of an Oldham street filled entirely with non-English speaking, Labour voters is made up. There is no such street. There are no reports of such streets.
Also interviewed after the result last night was Ukip’s deputy leader Paul Nuttall. Like Farage, Nuttall repeated the smear about postal votes and just like his boss, Nuttall provided no evidence. Instead he compared Oldham to Zimbabwe, telling the Mirror: “You have got to ask yourself – is this Britain or is this Harare?”
Now Zimbabwe comparisons are very familiar to anyone who has covered far-right politics in the UK. So let’s not mince our words about this – this is the tactics and language of the BNP. Farage and his party are deliberately using invented statistics and race-based smears, in order to stir up racial tensions and exploit people’s fears.
And instead of continually inviting him onto newsroom sofas to make these claims unchallenged, it’s time the British press and broadcasters finally started calling him out for it.
In the main the British voters are one of this planet’s best informed and most sophisticated electorate and just as when David Cameron was elected as leader of the Tories, to the opprobrium of many of the electorate, those who espoused the responsible socialism, economic responsibility and policies of the Conservative Party still votes Tory – Now despite the populist and utterly impractical style of Jeremy Corbyn both old and new Labour voted for their style of boom and bust borrowing economy, that brings short term comfort and long term collapse, in Oldham this week.
That in almost 23 years Ukip has failed to progress from being of cult status seems to have completely slipped the attention span of those besotted followers of their cult leader
That there may be 1,000 members of the cult and of Nigel Farage’s fan club turn up to a rally overlooks the numbers who do not – clever populism by a competent performer may well fill Wembley, as did the barcking mad self publicist low life liar David Icke and that Farage can emulate him in so many ways does not in the long term bear results much beyond loonie toon propaganda channels, those seeking to attack the British establishment that has served us so well for centuries – It is the degree of nihilism that can always be attracted within any society be that the failures and fools of Islamic terrorism who so betray Islam and the huge majority of Muslims, Oswold Mosely’s mob politics, which do not forget attracted bigger rallies and more votes than Farage’s Ukip yet failed to get MPs and councillors of any stature elected.
Making the transition from mouthy rabble rouser to trusted politician has elluded would be Messiahs over many centuries – Nigel Farage is just such a failed one trick pony – I am sad to say, as along with so many other thinking individuals over the years we had high hopes for Ukip but its inability to break away from its undeniable racism CLICK HERE and its growing band of people who have walked away in disgust CLICK HERE Ukip has utterly failed to make any significant breakthrough, fettered as it is by its lack of gravitas, lack of integrity or ethics and lack of leadership skills or even structure or vision.
A measure of the utter incompetence and lack of leadership, structure or responsibility of Ukip is firstly that after almost 23 years of espousing that Britain Leave-The-EU Nigel Farage and his fan cult have utterly failed to provide or promote a responsible, viable EU eXit and survival structure that is anything like workable, ethical or costed. Nor has Ukip’s so called management team ever managed to provide a reliable organogram – in fact every time there is a call for a manifesto on any matter at the very last minute in a very osentatious round of bullying and squabbling they write a new one that vituperatively renounces the previous one and all too often is in its turn totally ignored by Nigel Farage as he invents policy on the hoof to suit populism and expediency of the moment.
Expedience is the primary driving force in Ukip the expedience of adequate populism to ensure continuance of the income stream and a position on the couches of lazy TV journalists too lazy to expose the utter corruption and inadequacy of Nigel Farage’s failed Ukip cult.
Ukip has not and without radical root and branches pruning and restructuring stand absolutely no significant chance of credible influence in British domestic policy – the rot is so bad and the talent pool so destroyed that without removing at least the top 50 parasites in Ukip who have bullied and lied their way to control Ukip has no future in British domestic politics – that is not to say that a small clique will not find ways to continue enriching themselves at the expense of the public purse with a part naiive part vicious failures claque upholding the cult in return for notoriety and potential rewards.
Regards, Greg_L-W.
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Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 44 (0)1594 – 528 337
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Richard North’s Take On Ukip’s problems with The Natasha Bolter – vs – Roger Bird ‘Affair’.
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Richard has, in my opinion, stuck to the straight and narrow analysis of the situation without being sidetracked by speculation as to just what percentage of Ukip staffer’s, candidates and elected members have gained their positions in return for sex – Though we know it is a practice in Ukip where sexual partners are rewarded with jobs!
It does seem that Nigel Farage and his cult followers are easily duped by either a title, a good pair of legs or any old member of another party with a good line in patter – even some notorious or untrustworthy has been from the media!
Perceptive readers may notice that, so far, I’ve kept away from the Bird/Bolter (née Ahmed) soap opera. However, I’ve now broken my own self-denying ordinance and posted the Guardian’stake, conveying the words of UKIP’s ex-finest.
“I have ruined my life by speaking out about Roger Bird”, says the one of the women in Ukip who is “… seen for our intelligence and aptitude”. She then goes on to tell us that “she wanted to highlight pressure on women to sleep with men in powerful posts to enhance careers”. One Guardian commenter, though, is not convinced, telling Bolter: “No, you ruined your life by joining Ukip”.
Whatever else one might think of the former Miss Ahmed, one notes from the lengthy Mail report that she married at the age of 23. In six years she had five children, now aged nine to 15, and has separated from her husband.
After spending years as a housewife, we are told, she studied to become a teacher, and taught religion at Eastbury Comprehensive School in Barking, becoming active in the Tower Hamlets Labour party until her sudden switch to Ukip just three months ago.
Prior to her marriage, she claims to have read PPE at Wadham College, Oxford, a claim repeated by Roger Bird from the podium at Doncaster, also an Oxford PPE-ist. Then he told the conference: “Now, I was particularly pleased to hear this as it means I am now no longer the only Oxford PPE-ist in Ukip, and Nigel will have to stop making jokes about PPE-ists”.
Today, though, a spokesman for the university says that having checked the records against her date of birth and maiden name: “We can confirm that Oxford University has no record of a Natasha Ahmed having attended Oxford”.
One wonders, therefore, why that Ukip ever thought this person was a suitable candidate for a Member of Parliament, and is the sort of person who could ably represent her constituents and her party – especially as doubts are now being cast over the rest of her story.
More likely, the former Miss Ahmed “qualified” for exactly the same reason she is receiving inordinate attention from the media, specifically that she doesn’t “look a bit Ukip“. It seems that Ukip, like the rest of the political parties, is no stranger to the idea of tokenism – or insulting the electorate by putting up what looks to be a serial fantasist.
But now, it emerges, that the focus of the internal investigation in Ukip is on the behaviour of its general secretary over suspicions that he “marked up” the former Miss Ahmed in selection exams. Mr Bird was stepping into forbidden territory – only Mr Farage is allowed to rig the selection process.
Furthermore, it has been learned that she have been thrown out of the Labour Party for failing to pay her membership fees before her high profile “defection” to Ukip. Yet, her apparent defection was hailed as a major coup for Ukip, with her speech on why she chose to leave Labour receiving a rapturous, uncritical reception from Ukip supporters at the Doncaster conference.
What interests me most, however, is whether the torrent of media coverage is a practical demonstration of this principle, known as the Parkinson law of triviality, or better known as the “bicycle shed syndrome”.
The “syndrome” relates to Parkinson’s observation of a planning committee reviewing plans for a nuclear power plant. It spent the majority of its time with discussions on relatively trivial and unimportant but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bike-shed, while neglecting the design of the nuclear power plant itself – a far more important but also a far more difficult and complex task to criticise constructively.
Given a choice between exploring many other serious issues, and the trivial tittle-tattle of the former Miss Ahmed’s affairs, the difference in column inches appear to tell its own story. But it isn’t only journalists who are afflicted – blog readers also seem to be influenced by the syndrome. Compare, for instance, the number of comments here with this.
When it comes to a story such as this, which has extraordinary long-term significance, and this, which should get the coverage? Given a choice, I would say the former, whereas the media have opted for the latter – which deals with the spin off from the former Miss Ahmed – is getting the attention.
However, there are those of my readers who suggest to me that I should make choices, only that I should do the opposite to the media and concentrate on issues such as UNECE and global agreements on tyre standards, and steer clear of the more contentious stuff – like Ukip.
Yet, if my judgement is to be trusted on such details, then it is on matters which affect Ukip’s performance, such as Mr Hamilton’s expenses, and the decision to parachute him in as a replacement candidate, that it must also be trusted.
The behaviour of the political party which purports to seek our withdrawal from the EU is a legitimate interest for this blog. The events might be trivial but the context is not. A dysfunctional wreck dominating the eurosceptic territory is of concern to us all.
And this is where Parkinson got it wrong. The committee was not failing it its duty in spending time on the bicycle shed. We need well-designed cycle housing as well as well-designed nuclear power stations. Their mistake was in not dealing with the power station as well.
The same applies to the media. No-one expects them to avoid train-wreck stories about Ukip, but they should be covering all the territory – the nuclear power stations as well as the bicycle sheds. A paper that can run stories such as these should also be running stories such as these.
And that’s what this blog should be doing – not either or, but both … and that includes Ukip.
‘Bongo Bongo Land’ A UKIP Image of Nationality to Quote Godfrey Bloom’s Racist views, as published!!!
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racism is not confined to a few in UKIP nor to their choice of associates and allies in the EU – it is clearly widespread from the top to the bottom as proven by the very limited revolt of members to the overt racism of the party – despite the implausibility of their denial of the obvious!
Astonishingly only one member of UKIP leadership team has had the integrity to reject the vile association with extremists and advocates of violent racism both in UKIP and amongst its chosen associates.
The party and its leadership quite clearly represent the most odious aspects of some British peoples in their efforts to pander to populism rather than show moral and ethical leadership.
Ukip MEP Godfrey Bloom criticises aid to ‘bongo bongo land’
Ukip says comments are being discussed at ‘very highest level’ of party after outrage from MPs and campaigners
Godfrey Bloom, a Ukip member of the European parliament, made the comments to a meeting of supporters in the West Midlands. He suggested foreigners used aid to “buy Ray-Ban sunglasses” and “apartments in Paris”.
His remarks have emerged in the week Ukip is due to publish its list of approved candidates for next year’s European elections, in which the party hopes to get the biggest share of the vote.
In a challenge to Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, several MPs called for the party to prevent Bloom from standing again, saying it was a good test of its resolve to eradicate “intolerance”.
Bloom was filmed speaking at a meeting in Wordsley, near Stourbridge, in July. In the recording he says: “How we can possibly be giving a billion pounds a month when we’re in this sort of debt to bongo bongo land is completely beyond me.
“To buy Ray-Ban sunglasses, apartments in Paris, Ferraris and all the rest of it that goes with most of the foreign aid. F18s for Pakistan. We need a new squadron of F18s. Who’s got the squadrons? Pakistan, where we send the money.”
Two months ago Farage ensured an Italian MEP was expelled from Ukip’s European alliance for saying a black minister in Italy was part of a “government of bongo-bongo” who would want to impose “tribal traditions”, and would be better suited as a housekeeper.
A Ukip spokesman said Bloom’s remarks were being “discussed right at the very highest level of the party”.
Bloom said that suggestions that his comments carried any racist implications were “absurd” and “laughable”, adding that he has two Kashmiri staff and a Polish wife. He stood by his remarks, saying: “What’s wrong with that? I’m not a wishy-washy Tory. I don’t do political correctness … The fact that the Guardian is reporting this will probably double my vote in the north of England.”
In another part of the recording, Bloom says, in reference to a ruling from the European court of human rights: “You can torture people to death but you jolly well can’t give them a full life sentence because that’s against their human rights.
“We can’t hang them because we’re now a member of the European Union and it’s embedded in the treaty of Rome.
“It’s a personal thing but I’d hang the bastards myself … Especially for some of these, especially for the guy who hacked the soldier to death. I do hope they would ask me to throw the rope over the beam because I’d be delighted to do so.”
There have been reports that Ukip has been seeking a higher level of vetting for its prospective MEPs, after Farage admitted a “handful” of its local election candidates had caused the party embarrassment.
Bloom’s remarks caused outrage among many MPs and campaigners. Rushanara Ali, a shadow development minister, said: “It’s just offensive and the kind of thing that should have been consigned to the history books. It’s completely at odds with the 21st century.
“If Nigel Farage is serious about getting rid of racism and intolerance in his party, he should take action against politicians who think it’s acceptable to speak of people in developing countries in that way.”
John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said Ukip should “throw him out and stop him standing as an MEP”. A spokesman for the Hope, Not Hate campaign said Bloom’s remarks were reminiscent of the “Tory party of 1985”, when Alan Clark provoked outrage by referring to Africa as “bongo bongo land” in an official meeting.
Bloom has previously caused controversy over some of his comments about women. The MEP was criticised for asking why businesses would ever hire “a lady of child-bearing age” and once said he wanted to get involved in women’s rights issues because: “I just don’t think they clean behind the fridge enough.”
UKIP Forum is an over controlled Info source for both the media and those who seek to clean up UKIP to make it fit for purpose!
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Hi,
it is interesting to note that UKIP has learned so very little that they believe they have some form of secrecy on their members only forum!
This naive belief is as fashionably fatuous as the belief that mobile phones are or even might be secure – again and again socalled self styled ‘celebs’ line up in greed for morally and ethically unjustifiable compensation when for their very existence they are dependent on publicity and voyeurism yet they line up to tell the world they are idiots and have had confidential data on their mobiles hacked!
Even politicians claim they have been hacked, thereby admitting they have no understanding of the technology they use and on which they legislate! Further who would display ANY interest in these nobodies were they not holding positions for the public yet it is they who seek compensation for their stupidity, compensation that they seem unanimously to take control of when it is their constituents and parties are the losers by their foolish naivete!
Can UKIP really not realise many of us with an interest in UKIP read their Forum either by being members of UKIP or using details supplied by members who wish to see UKIP cleaned up and made fit for purpose and yet others have material forwarded to them by members!
A forum is, like a mobile phone, NOT a secure means of communication and perhaps one is justified in asking just why would any party wish to keep secret member discussions – just what are they ashamed of! The Tory Forums are open to read by all.
If a party can not put its points and debate its views with clarity, manners and ethics just who would wish to vote for them anyway! What better way to convince potential voters and supporters than informed and convincing factual debate on an open forum!
Repeatedly UKIP are shown by their own behaviour to be unprofessional, dishonest, corrupt, bullying, racist, anti homosexual and as has been said more than once a collection of ‘fruitcakes, nutters & loony tunes’ acting as The BNP in blazers who from fear and inability to make clear their message and even convince their own members have a proscribed list of people who may not join their party including ex members such as the now defunkt UK First Party (whose members and supporters they can not define and therefore invent) and ex members of the BNP and EDL etc.
Grown up parties are willing to accept converts from all sources, but UKIP proclaim a stance of Libertarian politics yet clearly believe this to mean libertine!
Buoyant Ukip battles to contain party’s most extreme elements
After beating the Tories to clinch second place in the Eastleigh byelection, Nigel Farage’s party is aiming to be squeaky clean
Ukip leader Nigel Farage in Eastleigh after the party came second in the byelection, ahead of the Tories. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Every political party has its fringe, but not many have members whose policy priorities include death to all squirrels, the end of the NHS and a return to the gold standard.
The United Kingdom Independence party is a different case. As Nigel Farage, the party leader, enjoyed his popularity bounce following Ukip’s second place at the Eastleigh byelection – flying to Canada to meet global rightwing heavyweights including the former Australian prime minister John Howard and the US Tea Party guru Ron Paul – officials were scrambling to contain the party’s most extreme elements, including xenophobia and racism.
On one members’ message board about migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, Ukip member Raymond Adams said this week: “Nothing less than ethnic cleansing is taking place. The Lib-Lab-Con EU puppets are dutifully diluting the English in particular to eradicate any nasty Nationalism. Then the next generation can be loyal and dutiful EU clones. EUtopia will have arrived!”
John Patrick added: “If there really are some 4 million Romanians and Bulgarians arriving within the year, I just hope our police are ready. We will have to build more prisons and increase the benefit payments.”
The remarks have been defended by the party chairman, Steve Crowther, but others have been removed. On threads where two members had reportedly linked homosexuality to paedophilia, Jonathan Arnott, the party’s general secretary, complained: “I’ve locked a number of gay marriage/adoption/etc threads which seem to have turned to both sides using it as an excuse to have a go at each other. Some of the personal abuse – on both sides – is some of the worst we’ve had on this forum.”
On Tuesday, Farage was the star turn at a “raucous” meeting of 100 party backers at the Ukip Patrons Club for donors giving more than £1,000. The gathering, the first since the byelection success, took place at the East India Club in St James’s Square where party loyalists dined on “the roast beef of old England” washed down with claret. But beyond London clubland, senior officials have warned “wackier” elements to rein in their excesses or leave, and with party sources saying Farage has flown to Monaco, Zurich and the Channel Islands recently to meet potential backers, message control is firmly on the agenda.
“Its time to start falling in line,” said one party official. “We have to be ready for more scrutiny and responsibility.”
Activist John Patrick said on a members’ forum: “We must now ensure, even more, that we are squeaky clean, and remain that way, if we don’t want the shell-shocked Tories to catch us out. No stings, and watch out for the secret recorders [and] cameras.”
The party machine is to move into more professional accommodation from its cramped floor of the Conservative party’s old HQ in Smith Square, Westminster, and will take space behind Claridges hotel in the same Mayfair building as Max Clifford’s PR offices. Rents in the building are among the most expensive in London at more than £65 per square foot.
The party declined to say who was paying for the space.
There are plenty of awkward associations in his party for Farage to negotiate from his new base. In January, the Dewsbury, West Yorkshire branch of the far-right English Defence League declared its support for Ukip and one member, John Emms, complained on Ukip’s official web forum that the British National party was “subject to persecution by the Political Correction Liberal Left thugs”.
Some of Ukip’s leading lights are feted by the hard right abroad. In February, in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut in which 20 children and six adults were shot dead, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, the party’s former deputy leader, appeared on a rightwing US chatshow describing post-Dunblane gun control in Britain as “kneejerk”.
He also maintained that the European Union was a dictatorship and described Australia’s prime minister, Julia Gillard, as a communist.
Speaking about environmentalism, Monckton decried ICLEI, the international network of local government bodies dedicated to sustainable development, as “the new dictators” and “straightforward, outright in-your-face communism dressed up to appear like it is to do with the environment”.
The odious style of management of Farage’s Party driven by personal ambition for money!
Would you really want to see such values managing any part of these United Kingdoms even if only in support of another party
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Hi,
it is interesting to note the timing of this article for release, supposedly on the front page of a National newspaper on International Women’s Day‘ bearing out the extreme anti women attitudes of Farage’s party as published by one of his two elected female MEPs and proven in Court by the other!
This seems to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to medi interest and from what I am hearing few journalists are finding any merit in the methods, unprofessionalism and lack of probity or transparency of UKIP’s behaviour.
Clearly UKIP lacks moral compass or the simplest of understanding of ethical behaviour as this and many other articles have shown just as have the numerous court verdicts and opinions stated against UKIP and its leaders!
The support given to racism, anti Judaism, anti homosexual, xenophobic and hate filled politics is undeniable and as one youngster pointed out from the audience of today’s BBC ‘Question Time’ UKIP is seen as playing on the fears of the vulnerable – leaving UKIP’s spokesman Diane James visibly flustered and red faced, though to be fair she came across as far more plausible and talented as both a spokesman and leader than any other spokesman put forward to date!
On past track record her days are numbered as with others who have outshone Farage and his personal income – Just think where UKIP might be now and just howmany seats it may well already have held if Farage had not fallen out with and set out to destroy one third of his elected MEPs and numerous elected NEC members!
Ukip leader Nigel Farage accused of making threats in bid to win funding
Two of the Eurosceptic party’s former MEPs claim they were put under pressure to break European Union rules
Nigel Farage faces accusations from former Ukip MEPs. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Nigel Farage has been accused of putting pressure on two MEPs to break European rules as he sought to gain tens of thousands of pounds in taxpayers’ money for the UK Independence party.
Nikki Sinclaire, MEP for the West Midlands, told the Guardian the Ukip leader told her the party would not be able to gain access to extra funds meant for a new political grouping without her support.
If she failed to support the group, Farage said he would destroy her political reputation, she alleges. Sinclaire left Ukip in 2010 after clashing with the leadership.
A second MEP claims she was asked by Farage to secure an assistant for his 2010 general election campaign using money from Brussels, in breach of strict EU regulations. Marta Andreasen, who also left Ukip – joining the Conservatives last month – says Farage told her women of childbearing age should not work because they are “a burden to their companies”.
Friends of Farage said Sinclaire had been a “thorn in his side” for many years and had an axe to grind. A Ukip spokesman told the Guardian: “We do not respond to vexatious allegations of this kind from our political opponents.”
Andreasen and Farage have clashed publicly before – after she quit Ukip, the party leader said: “Having left the OECD, the European commission and Ukip in unpleasant circumstances, the Conservative party deserve what is coming to them. The woman is impossible.”
Farage and his party argue that the EU is a waste of money and call for Britain’s withdrawal. Over the last 10 years, Ukip has raised £6.2m, according to the Electoral Commission, with hundreds of thousands of pounds coming from its MEPs, whose salaries and expenses are met by European taxpayers.
Ukip ran the Lib Dems a close second last week in the Eastleigh byelection. All three main parties are now wrestling with how to respond to the rise of the Eurosceptic party, which is to field about 2,000 candidates in the May council elections.
Both accusers are the only female MEPs ever elected by Ukip and both left the party, claiming there is a sexist attitude at the top of the organisation.
Sinclaire, a close associate of Farage for 14 years, said she was “intimidated and bullied” by him as he sought to establish the European Freedom and Democracy group in the European parliament.
In July 2009, he had secured 29 MEPs from a number of countries to support the establishment of the group. Sinclaire alleges that he told her he needed a 30th MEP to ensure that he secured additional funds. When she replied that she was unsure because of homophobic and antisemitic comments by Italian politicians who were part of the grouping, he responded by threatening her, she said.
“He said to me that unless I signed up to this group by 10am the following morning then it would cost the party half a million pounds and it would be all my fault,” she said. “If I didn’t sign up, he said he would make sure that everyone knew it was my fault and damage my standing in the party.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that he was seeking these funds for the political party, not for the new group,” she said. “His main objective was to get the party to gain access to more money, and he was prepared to bully me to get it.”
EU sources said if a grouping increased the number of MEPs from 29 to 30, its funding would be increased by about €50,000. EU rules state money for groupings should not be used for party political purposes, but Sinclaire said the funds were supposed to be sent instead to Ukip and filtered through to London. Sinclaire eventually joined the group, but regretted doing so, she said. She left it in 2010 and is now an independent MEP.
Andreasen is an MEP for South East England and a former Ukip treasurer who defected to the Conservative party last month. She said Farage instructed her to recruit an assistant on the party’s publicly funded Brussels payroll, despite rules that MEPs’ assistants must work for at least part of their time on European parliament business.
“I had a specific situation where I was asked to recruit someone for the southeast region [where she and Farage are MEPs],” she said. “I realised he was only going to work on the general election in 2010 with Nigel Farage, who was standing in Buckingham.
“He [Farage] told me to draw up the contract for him and he would give me a staff member from the group in Brussels. He wanted me to recruit someone who would work in an office in the northern part of the south-east constituency, close to Buckingham.”
Andreasen said the contract would have been for an assistant earning around £40,000 a year pro-rata and they got as far as identifying the assistant Farage wanted, but she realised Farage was asking her to use an MEP’s allowance solely for his UK political campaigning. She said she decided it would have breached parliamentary regulations and declined.
EU rules state: “The provided allowances are only eligible when spent on activities and objects which are directly linked to the office of a member of the European parliament.”
A Ukip MEP has been found to have misused taxpayer-funded allowances following a crackdown by Olaf, Europe‘s anti-fraud watchdog. Derek Clark, an MEP for the East Midlands, had successfully applied for money from the EU to pay for two assistants in 2004 and 2005. But instead of working for Clark, the inquiry found they worked almost exclusively for Ukip from Britain.
Clark, who has given more than £190,000 to the party in the past 10 years, said last year that he began paying political workers with EU money only after being asked to do so by an adviser to the party, whom he refused to name.
Andreasen said Farage and others were “very dismissive and disrespectful” when discussing legislation that affects women.
“The general attitude was that we would never support anything that was in favour of women. He told me that his attitude was that women who are at the age of being able to give birth to children should not be employed because they are a burden to their companies. It is a very extreme position.
“He dismisses you as if you were not a proper interlocuter. He does not discuss with you, because you are a lower-level human being. I could not respond or be angry about each thing that would happen,” she said.
Sinclaire said Meanwhile Rupert Murdoch said that he had invited Farage to his London flat for dinner. The News International chairman told his followers on Twitter that Farage was “reflecting opinion” at the dinner. “Few days in UK, Italy. Politics both places very fluid, economies going nowhere. New leaders emerging on distant horizon,” he tweeted. “Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, few excellent, frustrated ministers. Farage reflecting opinion. Florence mayor Renzi brilliant young Italian.”
she had faced many years of sexism from the party. Ukip used to hold national executive meetings in men-only gentlemen’s clubs in central London such as the Caledonian Club. “I was allowed to attend the actual meeting but could not join the rest of the NEC in the bar, where the eventual decisions were actually made,” she added.
Additional reporting by Flora MacQueen
To view tomorrow’s article CLICK HERE
This being the online article I am advised that it will be on the front page of the newspaper – The first of such articles as this seems to be only a small amount of the material which I know to have been gathered by this paper so far – the more damaging material would seem to be yet to come!
As I have repeatedly warned for many years supporters of UKIP should have done all they could to clean up UKIP and establish ethical behaviour and competent leadership with accountability, transparency and probity championing democracy by example or it would eventually fail as ‘the higher up the tree the monkey climbs the more you see its Rs …’
UKIP’s discredited Gawain Towler adds credibility to Monkton’s antics!
However it will be noted that despite UKIP denials he is still listed as head of UKIP Scotland and one of their policy leaders on their web site – although we all know Farage invents and dictates policy!
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Hi,
you may find this consideration of Christopher Monkton and his relationship with UKIP of interest!
British climate change sceptic Christopher Monckton. Photograph: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty ImagesAs has become the norm at such international gatherings in recent years, the eccentric climate sceptic Lord Monckton has flown in to Rio to perform his party piece about how environmentalists are trying to establish a “world socialist government”, and such like. What is less clear these days is whether his colleagues at the UK Independence Party (Ukip) approve of such interventions.
Under Lord Pearson, the previous Ukip leader, Monckton was the party’s deputy leader and was also variously the head of the party’s policy unit, as well as its spokesman on energy and the environment. But ever since fellow eccentric climate sceptic Roger Helmer defected from the Conservatives to Ukip earlier this year, he has assumed the latter role. So what, if any, role does Monckton now have at Ukip?
Gawain Towler, Ukip’s press spokesman, has confirmed to me this morning that Monckton “no longer has any formal role” with Ukip. Towler described Monckton as an “outlier” who is now “semi-detached” from the party, partly because he’s “barely in the country these days”. (Before arriving in Rio, Monckton had been touring the US Tea Party circuit casting doubt on the origins of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.)
I asked if there had been a falling out between Monckton and the current Ukip leader, Nigel Farage. Towler said not, but said that Monckton – whom he described as a “17th century pamphleteer” – was sometimes the source of “frustration” and was “very much Lord Pearson’s man – they own contiguous shooting estates in Scotland”. Towler added that Monckton had been active in the party at a time when it was “not drowning in talent”, but the recent surge in popularity for the party had seen a fresh influx of personnel. Monckton was a “loose cannon”, said Towler, but Helmer is a “tied-down cannon, pointed in the same direction”.
Interestingly, Towler said Ukip was now considering which seats to target at the next election (or by-election). In an attempt to replicate Caroline Lucas’s successful tactic in 2010 when she targeted Brighton Pavillion in her quest to become the first Green MP, Ukip will focus its resources and attention on constituencies where there is sizeable opposition to wind farms and where there are “Greg Barker-type MPs”. Towler said that Ukip was now communicating with all anti-wind farm groups and offering them “help and assistance”.
To view the transcript article in context CLICK HERE
To be criticised but the totally discredited pervert Gawain Towler and UKIP’s corrupt leadership may well be considered a compliment by some, including the self publicist Christopher Monckton who is seen by many as a liability to pragmatists who do not glibly buy into the ‘Warmist Theories’ and the tax raising concepts of Anthropogenic global warming, which since it has occured cyclically on our planet long before mankinds emergence would seem to have little to do with mankind in the long term!
Gawain Towler who has from time to time boasted of his sexual hedonism and was dropped as a UKIP candidate by his regional selection committee after alegations by his wife were made that she had caught him in a very sexually aroused state whilst bathing with his young daughter after which the couple separated I understand.
Nigel Farage arbitrarily reinstated Towler as UKIP is after all his personal feifdom! In the light of these facts it is clear that Towler is now little or nothing more than Farage’s lap dog having been deselected by the party (in as far as ‘The Party’ has any say or relevance!)
A poster based on artwork by his wife using him as ‘the print block’ in an art class held on an EU grant I understand!
A slightly more acceptable picture
featuring Gawain Towler as a poseur for bedroom wear
imported afrom Turkey nd sold by Alan Bown
Iam given to understand!
in the light of Derek Clark’s lies and serial dishonesty perhaps it is apposite to ask how even such a consumate spinner and showman as Nigel Farage can justify his dishonesty as he lied to the media, lied to the electorate, lied to the UKIP members, lied to the Regional Committee and lied to his colleagues as admitted in the press:
Ukip leader Nigel Farage has admitted that he also might have been investigated for diverting EU money, but says he has done nothing wrong. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian
MEPs from the United Kingdom Independence party, whose organisation has railed against the European Union‘s “gravy train”, have been found to have misused taxpayer-funded allowances following a crackdown by Europe‘s anti-fraud watchdog.
Two of the party’s senior members have repaid more than £37,000 meant for office staff after diverting it to party workers based in the UK. One MEP told the Guardian that he was asked to divert the funds by a senior adviser to the party.
The findings follow an inquiry by Olaf, the EU’s investigative unit, and will raise further questions about the way that Ukip has sought to profit from the European parliament’s generous expenses and staffing regime. The party argues the EU is a waste of money and calls for Britain’s withdrawal.
It comes days after a YouGov poll gave the party a major boost, showing Ukip in third place behind Labour and the Conservatives on 9%, with the Liberal Democrats at 8%.
Documents released by Olaf show that Derek Clark, Ukip’s MEP for the East Midlands, had successfully applied for money from the EU to pay for two assistants in 2004 and 2005.
But instead of working for Clark, the inquiry found they worked almost exclusively for Ukip from Britain.
EU rules state that staff paid with this allowance must work predominantly for the European parliament. “The provided allowances are only eligible when spent on activities and objects which are directly linked to the office of a member of the European parliament,” EU documents state.
One of those paid by Clark was Niall Warry, Ukip’s former office manager in its Birmingham headquarters, who received around £10,000 for six months’ work.
He told the Guardian that the decision was approved by senior people within the party. “Ukip MEPs, sanctioned by the top of the party, have been paying for salaried party officials with public money. I knew I was being paid by Clark, but I was not aware then that it was against the rules,” said Warry, who has since left the party.
Clark said he began paying political workers with EU money only after being asked to do so by an adviser to the party, whom he refused to name. He has repaid around £31,800.
“We were using legitimate ways to use this money to try and alert people on the problems of the EU. We believed that we were doing it for Britain,” he said. “It was an honest mistake.”
Olaf’s inquiry concluded that there was a breach of rules. “The discussed payments could be considered illegal indirect party funding,” it said.
Graham Booth, the late Ukip MEP for south west England, was asked to pay back £5,555 after Olaf found he had also diverted money to fund a party official. It is understood that Booth, who died in December, paid the money back in full.
Another Ukip MEP, Mike Nattrass, was subject to an Olaf inquiry but was not forced to pay money back.
Other Ukip sources have claimed there was a “systematic” attempt to pay party officials using EU money.
In 2009, a former Ukip MEP was jailed for diverting £39,000 meant for a member of staff into a bank account he secretly controlled. Tom Wise, who represented East of England, spent some of the money on fine wine and a car.
Nigel Farage, Ukip’s leader, admitted he also might have been investigated by Olaf for diverting money from the EU to political campaigns, but said he had done nothing wrong. He insisted there was not a systematic attempt to defraud the EU by his party.
“There is a hell of a difference between that and seeking personal gain from public money. In the case of poor old Derek Clark it has cost him out of his own pocket,” he said.
There is no escaping the truth that derek Clark is a liar and the backing of someone as corrupt as Nigel Farage does not alter that – clearly UKIP Leadership is unfit for purpose and not just the rigging of selection processes, the fiddling of internal elections and the deliberate abuse of the public purse with endemic theft from the tax payer to fund their life style of luxury, their wives and their staff can be justified.
UKIP leadership are unfit for office as shown by the fact they tyake advice from staff that they should lie!
UKIP members in the know are no better as by supporting UKIP they debase these United Kingdoms and aid and abet the corruption and self enrichment of the garbage that has floated to the top of the septic tank that is UKIP politics.
UKIP with its serial liars like Derek Clark, Gawain Towler, Nigel Farage, Mick McGough, Gerard Batten, Tom Wise, David Bannerman, Douglas Denny, Mark Croucher, and the rest of the self serving low life trash of politics! Propped up by a seemingly constant flow of bimbettes and other failed Tories!
IF they had any self respect, integrity or ethics they would speak out publicly to make the party fit for purpose but this is unlikely as they all have their own personal ambitions and will peddle the monsterous lie that to expose the corruption will damage the party – Have they no integrity? A party that corrupt needs to be exposed to rebuild a EUroRealist movement of some gravitas and consequence that can achieve what UKIP never has and never will in their present state – The leadership required to Leave-The-EU.
In 20 years UKIP have achieved absolutely ZERO to Leave-The-EU and have associated and even selected some of the most sordid politicians in EUropean politics and clearly all for the gain of a small self serving clique of liars and ner do wells.
Some may feel my comments are harsh but let us remember that it is UKIP leadership that has tried to defame me, tried to bankrupt me, lied to the Police about me, lied at meetings, owe mke £12.1/2 Thousand in unpaid debts to me, it is scum like Annabelle Fuller and Mick McGough who have openly stated they hope I die of cancer.
Yes I find UKIP little more than an excrecence as with many of its self righteous members who although aware of the vile behaviour of its leadership still will not speak out in public against the corruption for fear of damaging their route to the gravy train. The excuse is for the good of the party – which is clearly dishonest as the party is going nowhere with the present leadership as election after election has shown.
Let me remind you that Tom Wise was ordered to pay back less than Derek Clark and to the very end Nigel Farage was telling lies to protect Tom Wiser and himself just as is the case now with regard to his lies to protect Derek Clark – The man is a low life scoundrel who has betrayed all who ever trusted him!
Let us not forget the lies and abuse of Daniel Foggo who had the timerity to expose their corruption in the media and do not forget the lies to The Derbyshire Times see CLICK HERE & CLICK HERE & also CLICK HERE
It is a matter of record that to cover-up UKIP’s criminality Tom Wise spent £8,000 of public money on solicitors trying to prevent me publishing the truth – then when Junius & I posted the OLAF investigation numbers on Derek Clark he LIED to his regional committee and claimed there was absolutely no enquiry and that we had made the numbers up and were telling lies.
Will Farage, Derek Clark and the other UKIP liars be making a public apology to Junius and I for having lied about us? I doubt it as they lack the integrity and clearly are without fundamental emorality or understanding of ethics – They are therefore unfit for public office.
Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
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