‘Ukip’s biggest donor and David Cameron’s former strategist in plot to oust 100 Remain MPs’
A millionaire former donor to the UK Independence Party and David Cameron’s ex-policy guru are joining forces to try to unseat 100 Remain-supporting MPs at the next general election, The Telegraph can disclose.
Arron Banks, the insurance millionaire, will unveil plans in May to help fund independent candidates to stand against MPs who he feels have failed their local constituents.
Mr Banks said he had held talks about his campaign with Steve Hilton, who was Mr Cameron’s policy adviser when he was in Downing Street.
Arron Banks gave £1m to Ukip before the last general electionCredit: Jonathan Brady/PA Wire
Mr Hilton has launched his Crowdpac funding campaign in the UK last summer to “help more independent – and independent-minded – people stand for office, whether at the local or national level”.
Under the plans, his new Patriotic Alliance movement to help to organise and fund “independent candidates to stand against particularly bad MPs”.
He would target what “bad career politicians”, he said, adding: “We have been working with Steve Hilton on how you fund local candidates, how you put them forward, how you do things.”
Local Facebook pages would be set up in constituencies to invite support for a campaign to unseat the local MP.
Andy Wigmore, Mr Banks’ key adviser, said the alliance had identified 103 MPs which “we consider are not fit for purpose”.
The alliance would look at how many times they voted, how many times they interact with the public and “their reaction to Brexit”. He said: “There is a multiple of facets that classify them as rubbish.
“There is a graph which we will produce based on research with our user base to find which ones are good MPs and which are bad MPs.”
Mr Wigmore said the movement could result in the biggest clear-out of MPs since scores left Parliament after the Telegraph’s exposure of the MPs’ expenses scandal.
He said the campaign would also focus on Remain-supporting MPs in areas that voted for Leave. “We are going to attack them,” he said.
From left: Nigel Farage, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore in 2016Credit: Heathcliff O’Malley for The Telegraph
Mr Wigmore said he and Mr Banks had met with Mr Hilton several times to discuss the plans at the Cpac political conference in Washington DC a month ago.
Mr Hilton was also spotted at a party thrown by Mr Banks for Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, on the night before President Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington in January.
Mr Wigmore said: “If someone wants to stand as a candidate we will help them and use Crowdpac to help them generate funds to do so.”
Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s former adviser, on the Vote Leave campaign trailCredit: Andrew Parsons/i-Images
Mr Hilton could not be reached for comment.
However in an article last year, Mr Hilton said: “If we’re ever going to see the kind of modern, responsive and open-minded politics that people are crying out for, we have to break the grip of the party machines and get more independent, and independent-minded, candidates elected to office, at every level of government.”
Also in Chopper’s Brexit podcast, Jonathan Faull, one of the EU’s most experienced British officials, suggested he would be willing to advise Whitehall on the Brexit talks.
Asked if would offer his services to his country, Mr Faull, who retired at the end of December after 38 years at the European Commission, said: “My country can always call on me – I remain a British citizen thoroughly loyal as well as a British citizen who thinks that the European Union is also of great importance.”
With an avg. 1.2M voters per MEP & Britain having only 8%, if united, say. The EUropean Parliament has no ability to make policy and has a Commission of unelected bureaucrats, thus clearly the EU is not even a pretence of being a democracy; yet it is willing to slaughter people in Sovereign States to impose democracy on them!
The imposition of a Government and policies upon its vassal regions such as the peoples of Greece shows just how far from being a democracy the EU is.There will be little or no change in Britain’s economic position, when we leave the EU and by then being a part of the Eropean Economic Area all will benefit, as we secure trade relations with the EU vassal regions and can trade and negotiate independently on a global stage.
One huge benefit will be that we can negotiate with bodies like the WTO, UN, WHO, IMF, CODEX and the like, directly in our own interest and that of our partners around the world in both the Commonwealth and the Anglosphere at large; rather than having negotiations and term imposed by unelected EU bureacrats.
The greatest change and benefit will be political, as we improve our democracy and self determination, with the ability to deselect and elect our own Government, which with an improved Westminster structure, see >Harrogate Agenda<.
How we go about the process of disentangling our future well being from the EU is laid out in extensive, well researched and immensly tedious detail see >FleXcit< or for a brief video summary CLICK HERE
NB:
I NEVER post anonymously on the internet
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
Published: 15:54, 19 October 2014 | Updated: 16:37, 19 October 2014
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A multi-millionaire who pledged £1million to Ukip after defecting from the Tories was at the centre of a harassment row with a female employee.
Insurance tycoon Arron Banks, 48, was arrested over given an official warning over his pursuit of 33-year-old Jo Featherby, who he first hired as an 18-year-old waitress.
Mr Banks, who wants to stand as a Ukip candidate, was unveiled by Nigel Farage earlier this month as the party’s latest star recruit
Arron Banks was arrested and handed an official warning from the police after being accused of harassing a female employee
He allegedly offered her boyfriend Andy Giles £30,000 to end his relationship with her.
A friend told the Sun on Sunday: ‘Banks made her life hell. He would stop at nothing to make her be his girlfriend.
When Ms Featherby complained to police she was dismissed from insurance company GoSkippy — linked to Banks’s firm Brightside.
Mr Banks told the newspaper that he had agreed with police not to contract Ms Featherby following the harassment claims.
The friend said: ‘Banks had been pursuing Jo ever since first hiring her when she was an 18-year-old barmaid at his local pub.
‘Even then he was trying underhand tactics like ensuring flowers were delivered to her while she was with her boyfriend. She left but later joined one of his firms and was eventually promoted to run a team of 60 sales staff.’
Mr Banks was accompanied by Mr Farage and party chairman Steve Crowther when he made the announcement at a press conference at a country hotel near Bristol
The insurance tycoon planned to give Nigel Farage’s party £100,000 – but upped the donation after William Hague called him a ‘nobody’
Ms Featherby, from Bristol, launched employment tribunal proceedings alleging unfair dismissal and harassment. But she later agreed an out-of-court settlement gagging her from speaking out.
The revelation are a blow to Ukip ahead of next month’s crunch Rochester by-election, triggered by the defection of rebel backbench MP Mark Reckless.
Mr Banks was unveiled to the national press at a special event in Bristol on the final day of the Conservative Party conference earlier this month.
He announced he was handing the party £1million to fight the next election – because he was angry at being called a ‘nobody’ by William Hague.
Mr Banks, who has previously given tens of thousands of pounds to the Conservatives, said he was only going to give Nigel Farage’s party £100,000 – but decided to increase it by £900,000 after Mr Hague’s jibe.
The revelations over Mr Banks come after Ukip’s first elected MP Douglas Carswell took up his seat in the House of Commons last week
+5
Nigel Farage has been campaigning hard in Rochester and Strood with former Tory MP Mark Reckless ahead of next month’s by-election
The announcement, timed to disrupt David Cameron’s set-piece party conference speech, came after the Tories were left stunned by the double defection of rebel backbenchers Douglas Carswell and Mr Reckless.
Mr Banks — who has split from his Russian wife — told The Sun on Sunday: ‘After events all got very heated she made these allegations against me. It was agreed mutually with the police that I wouldn’t contact her again.
‘Jo Featherby was a long-term employee of ours who had horrendous personal problems with her boyfriend.’
Police confirmed: ‘A 46-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of harassment on August 9, 2012. He was issued with a harassment notice and words of advice.’
A Ukip spokeswoman said: ‘He’s done nothing illegal.’
Tory MP Tracey Crouch said: ‘Ukip should not take money from people who treat women this way.’
UKIP Donor Demetri Marchessini Displays the Values of Many Supporters bringing the party into further disrepute! Publicity like this will be an ever increasing norm as Farage’s Party gains populism as the higher up the tree the monkey climbs the more you see its a***! Without competent leadership & a sound training program discipline is impossible!
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Ukip donor says women in trousers are ‘hostile’ and unmarried mothers need a ‘smack’
A businessman who gave £10,000 to Ukip has said women in trousers are showing “hostile” behaviour, unmarried mothers deserve “a good smack” and “date rape” is an invention of feminists.
Demetri Marchessini, who gave two donations of £5,000 each to Ukip this year, suggests women should wear skirts because it is more pleasing to men.
The Greek businessman is the author of a book entitled Women in Trousers: A Rear View, which contains photographs and a commentary about women’s behinds.
“Walk along any street and you see women using trousers like a uniform every single day,” he has written. “This is hostile behaviour – they are deliberately dressing in a way that is opposite to what men would like.
“It is behaviour that flies against commons sense, and also flies against the normal human desire to please.”
He suggests that women wearing trousers could have affected Britain’s falling marriage rate.
“Trousers are made for men’s bodies, which are mostly straight up and down. Women’s bodies on the other hand consists of curves. Women have big bottoms – they are meant to have big bottoms.
“Countless women who would look lovely in dresses or skirts are embarrassingly unattractive in trousers.”
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Marchessini acknowledged some of his views might be seen as “controversial” and confirmed he thinks women in trousers is an “abomination”.
HisMarchessini.co.ukblog contains more colourful views, including: “There is a basic fact of life that women do not grasp — skirts give erections, but trousers do not.”
“Feminists have convinced women that if they make love with a man, and it is not satisfactory, then it must have been rape,” the blog says. “Of course, such allegations cannot be taken seriously, and they do great harm by persuading women that they have been “raped” when they have not.”
“There is also another important reason why women do not receive respect from men,” the blog says. “That is because men only respect manly qualities, and women do not have manly qualities.”
It says women and men have the same average IQ but female brains are“not able to compete”when it comes to logic.
The blog also links sexual abuse with homosexuality and questions whether homosexual relationships “have anything to do with love”.
One post reads “90% of the sexual abuse that took place in the Catholic Churchwas between priests and teenage boys. This is not “paedophilia”, but good old fashioned homosexuality. But because the press and many people have now accepted homosexuality, and do not wish to attack it, they instead call the abuse in the Church “paedophilia”.”
The front page of the Marchessini blog contains the warning that “if the truth disturbs you, read no further”.
Ukip had to suspend several local council candidates for expressing extreme views on the internet over the last month.
However, Nigel Farage, the Ukip party leader, points out the party is the only one to forbid ex-members of the far-right BNP from joining and turns away people who appear “very, very odd”. Ukip mostly has to “take people on faith”, he added.
Ukip has enjoyed a huge poll surge in recent months, taking around 26 per cent of the vote in recent local council elections. They beat the Liberal Democrats and challenged the Tories in constituencies across the country.
However, the party has failed to translate its popular support in the same level of donations as the Conservatives and Labour.
In the first quarter of this year, Ukip raised £74,150. In contrast, the Tories and Labour got around £3.7 million each.
The party’s treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, has written to members asking for money to help Ukip bolster its European election campaign next year and the general election the year after that.
Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
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