05/11/2018
Controversial businessman Banks appears to have misled parliament over links between his pro-Brexit campaign and his insurance business during the EU referendum.
Damian Collins, chair of parliament’s inquiry into fake news, said that the leaked emails appeared to “flatly contradict” what Banks had told his committee, and that he could have “deliberately misled the committee and parliament on an important point”. Collins requested the emails and said they would form key evidence as part of his inquiry into disinformation and its threat to democracy.
One ex-Eldon Insurance employee told the Observer: “I made it absolutely clear that I didn’t want to work on the political stuff. I wasn’t comfortable with it. I didn’t want to be complicit in it. There were quite a lot of spats about it. People were frozen out if they refused to work on it.”
Another former Eldon worker alleged that they were frequently asked to help the pro-Brexit campaign. “Some of these images were really horrible, the immigrants and refugee stuff. But there were always these urgent requests coming in. You were told to stop what you were doing and do something for Leave EU,” they said.
Brittany Kaiser, who worked for Cambridge Analytica, the defunct data firm at the heart of the Facebook scandal, told the same committee that she saw “with my own eyes” employees of Eldon Insurance staffing a call centre working for Leave EU.
Remain-supporting MPs from all the main parties said the latest revelations raised serious questions over how the referendum had been won – and strengthened the case for another public vote. The Tory MP Phillip Lee, said: “The more we hear about the risks of Brexit and the way it was sold to the public by people who had little or no interest in the truth, or following rules, the stronger the case becomes for suspending or revoking article 50 until all of these irregularities are cleared up.”
The former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said: “These latest claims, if proven, call into doubt the entire validity of the referendum result.”
Just My Opinion
Barely a day passes without further information that gives support to a 'People's Vote'.
Arron Banks has been involved in suspect activity in a number of ways now and it is clear this needs to be investigated further.
Parliament must put a stop to the process for the UK to leave the EU, withdrawing Article 50, so that the many issues with the referendum can be properly investigated. Once the investigations have been completed and those guilty of crimes have been, where appropriate, referred for prosecution, the referendum should be re-run.
Any new referendum must be subject to far greater controls in respect of funding and the messages put out by both sides.
It would be a massive betrayal of the citizens of the UK for our government to continue on its current course, based upon so much illegal and immoral activity.
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