Nigel Farage and Arron Banks Part One

Hey there pick poppers, ready for another exciting instalment? Well strap yourself in because this is a long one and in all likelihood it will really annoy quite a lot of people. But, in all honesty, I think this may be one of the most important and elucidating episodes. Today we are going to go back to the beginning and fill in some of the gaps. Oh no come on man, this is going to be rubbish, like when they do a clip show isn’t it? No, honestly this is all new stuff, just with the perspective of hindsight.

This chapter will be mostly focussing on the face of Brexit, that odious slug Nigel Farage, and his pals in Leave.EU, Andy Wigmore and Arron Banks. Well colour me surprised if there aren’t explicit connections to the propaganda network and USA think tanks that I have been jabbering on about for all this time. Also recently some news broke that essentially vindicated what I have been saying for the past couple of years which we will look at but first a bit of context.

This is a particularly long post so will be split into two. Look out for the next part coming in the next few days.

I think I had better put one of these here:

They wanted to crash out on a no deal so they lied to you

You may have noticed recently that several politicians have started to push for the UK to leave the EU without a deal. Some are spinning this like a ballerina’s heel by calling it a WTO deal. That is a misnomer; it actually means no deals at all. The only real WTO rule is that you have to have the same terms with everyone – no one gets preferential treatment. That’s right we are being told that reducing our trading levels to that of the powerhouse that is Mauritania (admit it you had to look it up – I did it’s in Africa next to Mali). Actually even Mauritania now has bilateral trade with its neighbours. If we leave on a no deal basis, in order to get us back to the level we currently are at we have to still arrange a method of trade with the EU (but with nothing to trade with) and then also negotiate trade deals with 120 other countries before we can move any goods. This has never been done before by any country and the average individual trade deal takes between five and seven years to negotiate, with some taking as long as decades. This is not an enviable position to be in and it will be self imposed. We are essentially imposing economic sanctions on ourselves. That is how we are trying to crush Iran, by limiting its trading ability and thus hurting its economy. We are doing that to ourselves if we follow this path. Put simply, no deal is being pushed by people who will make money from the disaster capitalism. Every single economist of any worth has pointed out what a disaster this will be, especially for normal people. The cost of goods and services is expected to rise and the quality is expected to fall, all this whilst the country is in recession.

To be fair one person is very enthusiastic about the prospect but that guy is the Edwardian Grandfather clock that is Jacob Rees Mogg. This seems somewhat problematic as Rees Mogg is heavily involved with a company called Somerset Capital Management which specialises in making a profit from disaster capitalist events such as leaving with no deal. In an act of blatant hypocrisy Somerset Capital Management has already moved its offices to Ireland so that it can continue to do business with the EU, despite Rees Mogg proclaiming that the EU is bad for UK business. Rees Mogg at another juncture admitted that a no deal Brexit would take at least fifty years for the UK economy to recover from stating “We won’t know the full economic consequences for a very long time,” he said. “The overwhelming opportunity for Brexit is over the next 50 years.”

Similarly James Dyson, another arch Brexiteer, has moved his operations to Singapore despite proclaiming Brexit would be great for business. In a similar spirit, Tory Brexiteer John Redwood, who earns £180,000 a year as chief global strategist for investment management firm Charles Stanley, advised UK investors in November 2017 to “look further afield” owing to the British economy’s weakness, flying in the face of his previous proclamations like a bat at an Ozzy Osbourne concert.  Michael Ashcroft, the billionaire Tory peer and former donor, has advised UK businesses to establish bases in Malta to compensate for the “period of uncertainty” caused by Brexit. Nigel Lawson, who chaired the Vote Leave campaign, has chosen this moment to apply for French residency having long retained a mansion in Gascony, this is the man who chaired the campaign to leave for crying out loud, making provisions against the actions he recommended.  Ex Brexit Minister Steve Baker invested £70k in a firm that sells gold to avoid the Brexit impact, perhaps he knows something that he is not telling people. Boris Johnson has been cosying up to Steve Bannon and the cadre surrounding Cambridge Analytica and their hedge fund money.  Johnson, Rees Mogg, David Davis, Jeremy Hunt, Daniel Hannan and Liam Fox are all uncomfortably close to institutions like the IEA and Turning Point UK, which are connected to the Koch brothers and the Heritage Foundation (see previous blogs). Nigel Farage is connected explicitly to Steve Bannon and to Robert Mercer.via a number of conduits. Having recently formed the Brexit Party, which sole policy seems to be to leave the EU as completely as possible, Farage has (bizarrely some might say) set himself up in a job where if he succeeds in his brief, he will become immediately unemployed. Now that does seem strange, is he stupid, a martyr completely dedicated to his cause, or do you think he may have something else lined up? Nigel Farage also spent quite a lot of time recently trying to finagle a job for the Trump campaign and move to the USA. For someone who loves the UK so much, this attempt to reinvent and reinstall himself State side does seem a bit odd. Farage also ensured that his children had German passports too, so that they could continue to enjoy the benefits of free movement in the EU.

Further to that, the firms Unilever, UBS, Toyota, Sony, Schaeffler, Rolls Royce, Phillips, P&O, Panasonic, Nissan, Moneygram,  Michelin, Lloyds, JPMorgan Chase, Jaguar Land Rover, HSBC, Honda, Goldman Sachs, Ford, Dyson, Credit Suisse, British Steel, Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Aviva all have plans to move their operations out of the UK or to greatly reduce staff numbers due to uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

But as Boris Johnson said, when foreign secretary and pressed on the worries of businesses over uncertainty regarding Brexit, “Fuck business!”

There was no way that they could initially offer no deal as no one would have taken it realising the hugely negative consequences. So they offered you an impossible dream and ignored the sticking point of the Irish border. Basically you cannot have two different customs unions on the same land without a border to stop smuggling of goods and people. If a border is put up in Ireland it will destroy the Good Friday Agreement. This is an unworkable conundrum, there simply is no answer. The politicians mentioned knew this. They just didn’t address it because there is no answer. They dragged it out until fatigue set in and people just wanted it to be over and delivered. Now people are claiming they always wanted no deal which is a lie – see the quotes in a minute. But now, beleaguered, angry and frustrated, people will take anything. I totally understand this feeling and find it hard not to sympathise, even if I do think ultimately that was the point of the con.

Recently Boris Johnson spoke about suspending Parliament to force through a no deal in October. He was outvoted this time by 41 Mp’s who tried to stop him, this did however indicate that 274 MP’s are willing to crash out on no deal.

On the day that Johnson was announced as the new Prime Minister this fear was addressed again.

As reported in the London Economic:

“People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett has said that the elevation of Boris Johnson to leader of the Tory Party and thus prime minister of the United Kingdom presents a “clear and present danger to Ireland” and “brings the prospect of no-deal and the imposition of a north-south border much closer”.

He called Mr Johnson a “genuine danger” because of his “callous disregard for the impact of no-deal on Ireland, his allegiance to Donald Trump, his disgraceful comments about UK soldiers’ actions on Bloody Sunday and his extreme right-wing views on just about every issue”.

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister also raised concerns speaking on the BBC:

"If the approach of the new British prime minister is that they're going to tear up the Withdrawal Agreement, then I think we're in trouble, we're all in trouble, quite frankly, because it's a little bit like saying: 'Either give me what I want or I'm going to burn the house down for everybody'," Mr Coveney told the BBC's Andrew Marr

"We have to protect relationships and peace on the island of Ireland, and we are not going to create a security risk by putting a border in place on the border, but we also have to make sure that there are verification mechanisms to ensure what the EU knows what is coming into its single market," he said.

At the time of writing this the proposed solution is “technology”. Now this technology doesn’t currently exist and no one knows how this yet to be invented “technology” would actually work and no one knows who will invent this mythical “technology” but optimism still rides high – after all we won a war don’t you know?

Brexit Party MEP worked for Cambridge Analytica 

Some of you are going to be very cross right now. I am sorry. However a piece of news broke the other day that showed my previous theories were correct, which indicates that perhaps you should consider the evidence that I have to bring before simply condemning it as lefty nonsense jibing with your current worldview.

The Brexit Party and Cambridge Analytica:

As reported by Channel Four News:

“Brexit Party MEP Alexandra Phillips has admitted she secretly worked for Cambridge Analytica on its controversial 2017 election campaign in Kenya.

Ms Phillips – a prominent member of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and former Head of Media for Ukip – made the admission to Channel 4 News after initially strenuously denying any involvement with the disgraced data firm, and pressurising journalists to drop the story.

She backtracked only after Channel 4 News obtained a recording of an interview from 2017 in which she confirms she had been employed by Cambridge Analytica to work for Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. In a statement released to Channel 4 News last night, Ms Phillips admitted working for SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, on President Kenyatta’s successful re-election campaign. The controversial 2017 Kenyan election contest was marred by misinformation with fake news spread across the country via the Internet and on smartphones.”

Ms Phillips was questioned on camera by Channel Four and not only denied working for Cambridge Analytica but threatened to sue if the story was pursued.

“She said: “I didn’t work for them at all. That’s libellous.” She added: “I’m being very serious now. You’re actually propagating a load of misinformation that’s been put online… based on nothing.”

She continued: “If you want to talk about the Cambridge Analytica campaign, speak to them, not me. I don’t know them. I really don’t know the people.”

Ms Phillips pressured the journalists to drop the story, before calling her lawyers. She said: “And if you use this online, it’s going to be very difficult, OK… And actually, please don’t pursue that because there’s going to be a lot of things that might be happening over the next weeks, months, which is going to make life very difficult. I’m being serious. I’ve never been employed by Cambridge Analytica in my life.”

Life got rather embarrassing for Ms Phillips, however, when it was revealed that Channel Four had acquired an audio file of the young lady admitting to working for the data mining giant in an attempt to interfere with a foreign election. In the recording from 2017 she admitted to being “employed by Cambridge Analytica” to work for President Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party.

“She said: “I’ve not been able to speak to you because I’ve been under my contract which finished yesterday. So now I’m able to talk. But whilst I’m under contract with Cambridge Analytica, if they’d found that I’d spoken to a journalist about them, then, you know what I mean non-disclosure agreements and all the rest of it… I wasn’t working for Jubilee I was employed by Cambridge Analytica who had the contract with Jubilee. I was brought on as a political communications consultant for the Kenya project.”

“I’d be writing the president’s speeches and his talking points for rallies and State House statements. I trained their communications team; they’re all sort of journalists who came together to create a press office. So I had to train them up and daily management of that communications team.”

She said the work was so sensitive that she was told “if anyone asks” what she was doing in the country, she must tell them she was working as “an air hostess”.

In the interview, Ms Phillips also claimed the contract was worth £300,000 [GBP] a month, and would add up to a total of around $6 million [USD] for the contract.

She said: “The $6m they got me and another chap who are two of the best in the business at doing this kind of stuff, and paid us nowhere near that much, my friend. The only thing that appals me about Cambridge Analytica was when I realised essentially how much of a money-making exercise they are.”

This ties in with Alexander Nix, the chairman of Cambridge Analytica, and his boasts, also secretly recorded, that they directed the Kenya elections.

Cambridge Analytica

So just to reiterate, prominent Brexit Party MEP and former Head of Media for UKip, Alexandra Phillips worked for Cambridge Analytica. That is Cambridge Analytica (the UK Government weapon) financed by Robert Mercer, the man who owns Breitbart, the news organisation that opened its London branch purely to help UKip and the man who suggested using Cambridge Analytica for the leave campaign as a favour to Nigel Farage. 

It was an inauspicious start for Brexit Party who were founded in January 2019 and by that summer had a series of elected MEPs in the EU parliament – despite campaigning on the idea that MEP’s are unelected and part of a tyranny. Nigel Farage took the lead role in the party, which any sensible person can see is simply a platform for Farage to spread his man of the people shtick and Cambridge Analytica tinged propaganda. Extremely early into the party’s existence, its leader Catherine Blaiklock quit in March 2019 after tweets that were anti-Islam and referenced racist white genocide conspiracy theories, and Treasurer Michael McGough was sacked in April for anti-Semitic posts. Annunziata Rees Mogg, the cooler, more street, more ghetto sister of Jacob, has recently been publically chastised for complaining that the EU had wastefully provided her with an iPad tablet and a phone, she seemed oblivious to the fact that she was supposed to be working on these devices in her role as an MEP. She later moaned about turning up to votes with no idea what she was voting on, only to be told again that it was her job to know this and to research the topic thoroughly beforehand.

Serious questions remain about who is behind this party, where they get their funding and ultimately what they are all about other than fear and hatred. The party has to this date not revealed any policies or mandates. All we know is that Farage is involved and they want a no deal Brexit. Normally such an entity rising out of nowhere with such a sophisticated PR machine would raise suspicions, but as I said people are exhausted and malleable through lies and disenfranchisement. They will do huge mental gymnastics to draw this to a conclusion and to deny that they have been lied to.

Put simply the Brexit Party is connected to Cambridge Analytica, the psychological warfare tool that produces weapons grade communications tactics and is under export control by the UK Government. It is a tool of the intelligence services. Therefore, logically, certain members of the UK Government and Intelligence Agencies are behind the message promoted by the Brexit Party.

Leave quotes

But surely, this is nothing new? I mean people have always just wanted to leave haven’t they? No, not at all, they have completely changed their stance. They originally never even considered a no deal exit and made numerous claims about how easy it would be to strike a favourable deal that would somehow make us the most attractive trading commodity in the world. I mean after all we won a war don’t you know?

Nigel Farage on the EU

Nigel’s ultimate position and agenda is as slippery and difficult to pin down as a greased eel, it’s almost as if he believes nothing he says and is just an inveterate con man out for himself.

Despite being the face of Brexit, in January 2018 Farage actually called for a second Referendum (third really but let’s not get bogged down with facts) "I'm reaching the point of thinking that we should have a second referendum"

Farage famously had to backtrack on the morning of the Referendum about claims that we would have an extra £350 million a week for the NHS saying, “No I can’t [guarantee it], and I would never have made that claim. That was one of the mistakes that I think the Leave campaign made,” To be fair this was part of Vote Leave not Leave.EU but it was never, ever challenged by Farage and was allowed to be assumed to be true. This is called lying by omission.

He later claimed he knew the claim was a lie but chose not to call out the falsehood as it helped his campaign. Speaking on his nightly LBC show, Nigel said: “When you've got your army and you're facing their army, what you don't do is shoot your own side in the back given the significance of what we were facing." Nigel Farage also said of Brexit, on LBC radio in May 2018,"I never promised it would be a huge success" despite constantly saying it would be. Currently Farage is advocating privatising the NHS.

In May 2016, when he wasn’t so assured of a victory for the Leave campaign, Farage said 'In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way.' He changed his mind however when Leave received 52%.

And finally here he is definitely not asking for a no deal scenario, “Wouldn't it be terrible if we were really like Norway and Switzerland? Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self-governing” 

Others on how easy a deal would be

Here are some other quotes that have aged like bread rather than wine:

Matthew Elliot, the Vote Leave chief executive stated “The Norwegian option, the EEA option, I think that it might be initially attractive for some business people” 

In April 2016 Michael Gove said, 'The day after we vote to leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want.' I assume in an attempt to start a national conversation about whether this man is a liar, a twat or a lying twat.

John Redwood showed his lack of foresight in July 2016 when he said, “Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy – the UK holds most of the cards.” If we do, they appear to be condolences cards. 

Boris Johnson stated in Feb 2016 “I will be advocating Vote Leave because I want a better deal for the people of this country, to save them money and to take control.” He later stated in 2017 "There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal"  - he was lying.

Despite advocating leaving the single market, in 2015 Daniel Hannan claimed “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the Single Market.” He also lied by saying “Without our EU budget contributions, we could give everyone a 60 per cent council tax cut.” 

Arron Banks, a founder of the Leave.EU campaign tweeted in November 2015 “Increasingly the Norway option looks the best for the UK”.

'There are good grounds for a new government team to offer the public a voice on what the deal looks like. And we obviously wouldn’t oppose that... I think there’s a strong democratic case for it.' Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave campaign director, Jan 2016

'If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy”. David Davis, 2012, discussing the EU

 “Only a madman would actually leave the Market” Owen Paterson MP, Vote Leave backer

Dominic Raab puts in his entry for total prat of the year with this beauty: “I hadn't quite understood the full extent of this but... we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing” November 2018

Jacob Rees-Mogg: "The UK will be a better destination for investors once we have left the EU."

There are literally hundreds of quotes from Jacob Rees-Mogg that we could include in here but his constant claims about the UK's prosperity after Brexit is a real sticking point.  In February 2019 he twice claimed that the UK and London will be flooded with investors looking to plunge their money into this newly rejuvenated post-Brexit economy.

'If we Vote Leave we will be able to stop handing over so much money to the EU and we would be able to spend our money on priorities here in the UK like abolishing prescription charges”. Gisela Stuart lied in April 2016.

Paul Nuttal: "It will be so easy to negotiate a trade deal, and of course, it's in the European Union's interest, just as it is in ours"  - Former UKIP leader Paul Nutall told BBC Radio 4 programme in January 2017 that negotiations will be easy.

Gerard Batten "A trade deal with the EU could be sorted out in an afternoon over a cup of coffee" - If anyone out there is on the lookout for the most inaccurate predictions of all time, there are worse places to start the UKIP leader Gerard Batten's comments on trade relations with the EU in February 2017.

"I think free trade would be relatively straightforward between the UK and America" - Brexiteer and former UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, said at the Institute for Government in April 2017

"You can be sure there will be a deal" - David Davis told the BBC in June 2017

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme Liam Fox said: 

“The free trade agreement that we will have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history. We are already beginning with zero tariffs, and we are already beginning at the point of maximal regulatory equivalence, as it is called. In other words, our rules and our laws are exactly the same.”

So you see, the idea of no deal was never mentioned, until it became an option that the frustrated would gladly accept rather than lose the opportunity to leave on more sensible terms.

Vote leave and Leave.EU campaigns

There were two campaigns for the leave vote, technically they were not supposed to interact but they did and they also both used Cambridge Analytica to mine data and microtarget consumers. Vote Leave was the official Government campaign which included such luminaries from the above set of lies as Daniel Hannan, Douglas Carswell, Gisela Stuart, Lord Lawson, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. The campaign was run by the political advisors Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliot. The Vote Leave strategy was "Don’t talk about immigration"; "Do talk about business"; "Don’t make the referendum final"; "Do keep mentioning the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the over-reach of the European Union’s Court of Justice" although they didn’t always stick to those rules. Essentially Vote Leave was to be the classy campaign.

The second campaign focussed on fear and sensationalism and was conducted by Leave.EU under the auspices of multi millionaire Arron Banks.

They both broke the law in their campaigns

Vote leave used Aggregate IQ, the Canadian arm of Cambridge Analytica to mine the data collected form Facebook and target advertisements at the users in a manner that would cause maximum outrage and fear. The reason that Cambridge Analytica used their Canadian arm was so that any investigations into misdeeds would be hampered by the fact that the UK government has no jurisdiction over a Canadian firm. Essentially because the data was processed in Canada, no one was allowed to look at what was done with it.

As the Observer Reported:

“Shamir Sanni  ( who worked for CA) told the Observer that Vote Leave deliberately broke the law by purporting to donate £625,000 to a youth group, BeLeave, but instead funnelled it directly to its data and ad-targeting firm AggregateIQ (which had links to Cambridge Analytica). Documents leaked last weekend by whistleblower Shahmir Sanni, showed that the Vote Leave and BeLeave were effectively the same entity, with the latter even located inside the former's offices. This was confirmed in an Electoral Commission report in July, and the evidence passed to the police.”

Christopher Wylie, who also worked for Cambridge Analytica, testified that BeLeave was nothing more than a money laundering channel. Wylie went even further, suggesting that Vote Leave had illegally coordinated with a much wider group of interests – anyone familiar with this blog will get the inference there.

"I am absolutely convinced that there was a common plan and common purpose with Vote Leave, BeLeave, the DUP, and Veterans for Britain. All of these companies somehow, for some reason, all decided to use AIQ," he said. "When you look at the accumulation of evidence, I think it would be completely unreasonable to come to any other conclusion other than this must be coordination, this must be a common purpose plan."

The DUP was shown to have sent a huge amount of money to Cambridge Analytica just prior to also receiving a Billion Pounds from the Conservatives for helping prop up their flailing government.

BeLeave was founded and run by 22 year old fashion student Daren Grimes. By weird coincidence Darren Grimes was also involved in the attempted opening of TurningPointUK, the Koch brothers affiliated think tank that wants to privatise the NHS. Small world eh?

Aggregate IQ was fined for this breach of the GDPR data rules by the ICO for using clients’ data in a manner that they were not aware of, essentially to manipulate you emotionally. As reported by the BBC:

“AIQ is a small Canadian data firm that uses data to target online ads at voters during public polls. 

It was paid nearly £2.7m ($3.6m) by Vote Leave to target ads at prospective voters during the Brexit referendum campaign. It was also used by pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave. Vote Leave has been fined £61,000 and referred to the police after an Electoral Commission probe said it broke electoral law by exceeding its spending limit by funnelling money through BeLeave. AIQ also received funding from Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party and Veterans for Britain, amounting to a total of £3.5m from all of its pro-Brexit clients.

Dominic Cummings and Vote Leave

Dominic Cummings was the Campaign Director for Vote Leave. From 1999 to 2002 Cummings was the Campaign Director for Business for Sterling, a group that opposed the UK joining the Euro, that just so happened to also include future Brexit Party chairman and Leave.EU founder Richard Tice. 

Cummings set his stall as an adviser to half man half snail Michael Gove from 2007 until 2014. After 2010 he became Gove’s chief of staff replacing the disgraced and disgraceful Andy Coulson. Prior to this in 2002 Cummings had worked for “the quiet man” Iain Duncan Smith (who famously claimed he could live on £53 a week benefits).

In 2002 Cummings described Iain Duncan Smith as "incompetent" and left his employment. Cummings then founded the New Frontiers Foundation think-tank as its director with the help of James Frayne, another former adviser to Michael Gove and an expert in astroturfing – setting up fake grassroots activist causes. Frayne was the director at the Taxpayers Alliance, a think tank affiliated with our old friends the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity which is connected to the Heritage Foundation. Well what a surprise, it’s the same people again. Matthew Elliot also ran the Vote Leave campaign with Dominic Cummings also just so happens to be part of the Taxpayers Alliance, well who would have guessed?

According to Sourcewatch.com the New Frontiers think tank had on its board Dr Nile Gardiner, Fellow in Anglo-American Security Policy and member of The Heritage Foundation. I am sure all of these connections are simply a coincidence.

Cummings was described by journalist Patrick Wintour as "either mad, bad or brilliant – and probably a bit of all three". In 2014 Prime Minister David Cameron criticised Cummings as a "career psychopath".

When Boris Johnson was appointed to the position of Prime Minister, Dominic Cummings was one of the first people he offered a job, as a top adviser. 

Cummings was credited with coming up with the slogan “Take back control”. The main premise being that we needed to wrest control back from the EU over our laws, borders and sovereignty. The only problem was that we already had that. Of all the laws imposed on the UK citizens only 72 are forced on us by the EU, these are all trading standards and workers rights laws and are all beneficial. It’s stuff like; you can’t have ingredients in jam that cause cancer (bloody political correctness gone mad!). Don’t believe me? Here, please look it up:

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/rationalist-destroys-leavers-with-list-of-all-eu-laws-that-have-been-forced-on-us-against-our-will/22/01/?fbclid=IwAR1FM80HJ_LSXjSvhSJ35SB4TyyAi1sfWzon6n5BEOeQ9F792xPyk1RbTAA

We do also control our borders. We just choose not to enforce the EU law that states you can be deported after three months if you cannot support yourself. Other countries in the EU make sure you can support yourself financially before being allowed entrance; the UK chooses not to do this. Also we do have sovereignty; the government released a whitepaper investigation showing this.

Now, is the EU arrogant, bureaucratic, wasteful and decadent? Yes, absolutely. Does it need reforming? Again, yes, absolutely. Like any institution there are bad points about it, but why not campaign on those points? Why lie? I am not pro EU, I am pro truth and it is the need for lying in the campaigns that makes me feel this is a trick. Why not be honest about the economic benefits and detrimental bureaucracy and fix the things we don’t like. At the very least we should be informed and not have to manoeuvre through propaganda when making a decision.

Turkey

Vote Leave, which you may remember was supposed to be the classy campaign, was accused of misleading scaremongering in 2016 for running an ad campaign that said: "Turkey (population 76million) is joining the EU". The reality of the situation was that Turkey had been trying unsuccessfully to join for decades and would need to meet many difficult requirements before this would even be considered. These provisions are not likely to be met any time soon. Regardless, Britain has the power to refuse Turkey membership to the EU and could veto its membership with no explanation required.

Boris Johnson stated in a BBC debate two days before the vote: “Last time I looked the government wants to accelerate Turkish membership.” He later falsely claimed “I didn’t make any remarks about Johnson actually has Turkish Ancestry in a wildly ironic turn of events.

Johnson was also in the “core group” of the campaign committee for Vote Leave. Former Vote Leave director Dominic Cummings claimed Mr Johnson helped secure 650,000 votes by “picking up the baseball bat marked ‘Turkey/NHS/£350 million’ with five weeks to go”.

Nigel Farage Aaron Banks funding 

Nigel Farage called the referendum “a victory for ordinary people,” adding, “We have fought against the multinationals, we have fought against the big merchant banks, we have fought against big politics, we have fought against lies, corruption, and deceit.” This statement contains more bollocks than the after party at a Pet Shop Boys show in the late 1980’s. Cambridge Analytica is intimately connected to hedge funds, big banks, oil tycoons, American think tanks and disaster capitalists. It also ran its entire campaign on lies and deceit and then had the nerve to admit to doing so, right to your face.

 He concluded, “Let June the twenty-third go down in our history as our Independence Day!”

So as we have seen the Brexit Party is connected to Cambridge Analytica and tangentially connected to the Heritage and the other main players in this blog series, but there is another connection in the guise of Leave.EU campaign manager Arron Banks. A recent Channel 4 News investigation revealed how multi millionaire Arron Banks spent approximately £450,000 on Nigel Farage to fund lavish lifestyle the year following the EU referendum in summer 2016.  

“Millionaire insurance tycoon Arron Banks spent close to half a million pounds funding Nigel Farage, who is now the Brexit Party leader. However, Nigel Farage claims Mr Banks has never funded The Brexit Party, which was founded in February this year.

An investigation by Channel 4 News reveals:

• Mr Banks, through one of his companies, rented exclusive £4.4m Chelsea home for Mr Farage
• Gifts included furniture, council tax, water and electricity bills
• Banks provided a £30k car and £20k for a driver
• Banks also leased private office for £1,500 a month and paid Mr Farage’s personal assistant
• Hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent promoting “Brand Farage” in America

A company owned by Mr Banks, called Rock Services Ltd, leased a £4.4m three-bedroom Chelsea home with a garage for Mr Farage at an estimated rent of £13,000 a month in summer 2016. Mr Banks also bought furniture and fittings for the house, including crockery, chairs and bathroom accessories and even even a shower curtain. Mr Farage was also provided with a Land Rover Discovery, valued at £32,300, for his use. Mr Banks paid £20,000 for a close protection driver and sought to raise a further £130,000 from unnamed supporters to cover Mr Farage’s security detail. They further reveal that Mr Banks funded a private office space for Mr Farage at 40 Great Smith Street in Westminster, and paid the salary of a personal assistant. Mr Farage continued to serve as a member of the European Parliament on a salary of €100,000 a year plus expenses. In July 2016, Mr Banks flew Mr Farage business class to Cleveland, Ohio to attend the Republican National Convention. Mr Banks, through Southern Rock, paid an American lobbying firm Goddard Gunster £64,064 for a “Nigel Farage Brexit Policy Luncheon”. Mr Banks paid an American strategist, Gerry Gunster, through his company Goddard Gunster, to organise the event. This included paying Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson £11,305.41 to interview Mr Farage at the event.”

Whoa, I have to stop you there; doesn’t that seem remarkably similar to the Koch brothers paying Tucker Carlson to talk about topics favourable to them on his show, which was exposed by Politico magazine? 

“At the RNC, Mr Farage met Republican Senator Bob Corker and John Bolton, currently serving as Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor. The meetings were coordinated by the American strategy firm.” So just to clarify that is John Bolton of the Heritage Foundation and Bob Corker of the Heritage Foundation. Anyone noticing any patterns yet?

Resurfaced video shows Farage bragging about how much money he earns as an MEP 

This is far from the first time that evidence has come forth to suggest that Farage is a greedy, self serving, money- hungry con man. Footage exists of Farage back in 1999 in the halls of the European Parliament bragging about the amount of money he can grift as an MEP. For someone who moans about the non elected nature of the position, he sure has held that job for a long time.

Farage, who would have been a member of Ukip during this period, stands with a wad full of cash in his hands, looking a bit like the Harry Enfield Character “Loadsamoney” but in a suit, claiming that he is now paid more than a Goldman Sachs banker because he employs his wife as his secretary.

When asked how much money he is holding, Farage replies:

“This represents four working days and one journey. We're talking about £1,900. It's a good job this.  I worked it out that because so much of what you get is after tax that if you used the secretarial allowances to pay your wife on top of all the other games you play I reckon this job in sterling terms is worth over £250,000 a year to you - that is what you would need to earn working for Goldman Sachs or someone like that.”

Despite being voted in by the people he claims to represent and whilst boasting of the perks, Farage has done little to actually help anyone but himself during his career. He has the lowest MEP attendance record ever and constantly misses important votes, of which the outcome can affect the general public. Quite simply, whilst pretending to care, he doesn’t give a shit. Farage has also had his salary docked in the past for misusing funds allocated – a bit rich for someone who rails against the gravy train that is the EU.

Perhaps this was just a one off…no, no he is a massive con man that is laughing at you.

Brexiter MEP Nigel Farage ‘entitled to €172,000 payout’ from EU NEW

As the National Magazine reported:

“British members of the European Parliament who will lose their jobs after Brexit could be entitled to a payout of up to hundreds of thousands of euros.

Politico, who obtained a document titled “British members end of mandate”, reported that British MEPs will be allowed to claim a transitional allowance of €8,611.31 (Dh37,000) for every year that they have served in the parliament.

The €8,611.31 before tax payment will be given every month for up to two years after the MEP has left the parliament. This means Brexit-supporting members such as Nigel Farage and Daniel Hannan, who first entered the parliament in 1999, will be able to claim for over €172,000.

Mr Farage, who has one of the worst attendance records in the history of the European Parliament, is already one of the best-paid MEPs because of his lucrative media contracts. He has declared his outside earnings to be between €590,048 and €790,000.”

But surely he is in it for the cause…no, no not at all. He has never taken the opportunity to make things better. In fact he lies about the cause of problems, blaming the EU with no logical explanation in circumstances where he, as an MEP could have done some good.

Nigel Farage is no fisherman’s friend: He’s been ignoring them for years

A common misconception is that the British Fishing Industry is being strangled by the EU. This is a trope that Farage and others play on a lot. Like many other claims, this just isn’t true. What happens is that the UK government is one of the few in the world that can sell its quotas to foreign companies. A huge amount of the quotas are owned by a very few large companies who sell these tenders, rather than fish them themselves and just collect the profit. This means the smaller fisheries are given far less to fish but has nothing to do with the EU.

As revealed in a report compiled by Unearthed.com:

“More than a quarter of the United Kingdom’s fishing quota is in the hands of a tiny group of the country’s wealthiest families, an Unearthed investigation has found.  Just five families on the Sunday Times Rich List hold or control 29% of the UK’s fishing quota. 

The finding comes from a new Unearthed investigation that traced the owners of more than 95% of UK quota holdings – including, for the first time, those of Scotland, the UK’s biggest fishing nation. It reveals that more than two-thirds of the UK’s fishing quota is controlled by just 25 businesses – and more than half of those are linked to one of the biggest criminal overfishing scams ever to reach the British courts. 

Meanwhile, in England nearly 80% of fishing quota is held by foreign owners or domestic Rich List families, and more than half of Northern Ireland’s quota is hoarded onto a single trawler.”

As reported in the Guardian:

“Writing in this newspaper, John Lichfield exposed the myths that Ukip and others have peddled about foreign boats and quotas: for one thing, the distribution of national quotas is the responsibility of national government, not the EU. This means that while there is indeed an excellent case for the inshore fleet – that is, those who fish within 12 miles of the shore, using boats mostly shorter than 10 metres (all the fishing boats in Whitstable harbour fall into this category) – being allowed a substantial increase in their share of the British catch (currently just 4%), this has nothing to do with Brussels.

Strangely, this crucial point was not raised by Farage in Whitstable, busy as he was posing for selfies and setting things on fire. It is palpably clear that fishermen need someone other than Farage on their side. He is not, as one protester’s banner put it, the fishermen’s friend. His voting record while a member of the influential European parliament fisheries committee is utterly dire – over three years, he turned up to one of 42 meetings. Research by Greenpeace shows that during the three major votes on the common fisheries policy, Farage failed to vote in favour of improving the legislation.”

As stated above, Greenpeace noted that Farage could have improved the lot of UK fisherman if only he could have been bothered. He isn’t though; he just uses other peoples suffering as currency.

"UKIP’s new election poster unveiled in Grimsby today highlights the plight of fishing businesses that have been ‘gutted due to the EU’.  Greenpeace has responded that UKIP’s voting record in the European Parliament and Nigel Farage’s appalling attendance on the Fisheries Committee makes a mockery of UKIP’s claim to be standing up for fishermen.

Over the three years that Nigel Farage was a member of the European Parliament Fisheries Committee, he attended one out of 42 meetings. Greenpeace research released today shows that during the three major votes to fix the flaws of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), Nigel Farage was in the building but failed to vote in favour of improving the legislation.

In 2013, Nigel Farage was again present but chose not to vote on the part of the reform of the CFP that introduces an obligation on governments to give more fishing quota to sustainable fishermen who contribute the most to the local, coastal economies. This would see the government giving more fishing quota to local, low impact fishing fleets, such as the fishermen featured in UKIP’s poster.

The new EU law on fishing has been reformed and if implemented by national governments, it will fix many of the serious problems faced by fishermen. UKIP did not lift a finger to support this huge win for local fishermen. Like it or not, the EU provides the solution for the problem and the next government must implement the new EU fishing law and stop giving the lion’s share of fishing quota to industrial and foreign fishing corporations at the expense of local, sustainable fishermen.”

Greenpeace launched the campaign ‘Our net gain’ in November last year with the shocking statistic that nearly half of the English quota is used by foreign industrial fishing corporations. While a meagre six per cent is given to local, low impact fishermen who fish sustainably and directly contribute to local economies.”

Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage and Robert Mercer have been friends since at least 2012. In 2015 Farage began to contribute on a regular basis to Mercer owned and Steve Bannon run Breitbart.com, the right wing tabloid that helped spread the lies of Cambridge Analytica (also financed by Mercer and run by Steve Bannon). Raheem Kassam, Breitbart London’s managing editor acted as Farage’s campaign manager. If you remember Breitbart only set up a UK office to help Nigel Farage and UKip. In 2016 President Trump tweeted that Farage would make a great Ambassador to the USA. Most people responded that they doubted he could make a great cup of coffee and politely told the President to get bent. Farage became a contributor to Fox News in 2017. In February 2017, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke tweeted "Farage will make a fine UK Prime Minister. Looking forward to that." But let us not forget that David Duke is a colossal twat.

Farage got himself in a bit of a pickle with UKip when he defended Trump’s boasting of being able to get away with sexual assault as “alpha male banter”. Many of his own MEP’s pointed out that he had made his name condemning sexual assaults by Muslims (with stories of dubious provenance) and yet appeared to allow them if conducted by a rich white man.

Nigel has been an arsehole for as long as he has been alive by the sounds of it. In 1981 when appointed as a prefect for his school (evidentially a posh one – Dulwich College) this was advised against by his English teacher due to his well known fascist views. Other pupils recall Farage boasting that his initials matched those of the far right National Front and that he was a fan of Hitler Youth songs and the sad, old reactionary Enoch Powell. In 2009 Nigel boasted that he took two million pounds of taxpayers’ money in expenses and allowances, on top of what was already a £64,000 a year salary so there’s your man of the people right there. Farage and his party UKip are well known for dog whistling racist tropes and stoking fears of exotic religions coming over here to take over and Farage is not above making such claims. In a 2014 interview on LBC, Nigel said he felt “uncomfortable” when he heard people speaking in other languages on London transport. His ex wife and Children speak German by the way and his own Great Grandparents were German but let’s not get bogged down in facts. Nigel defended a UKIP candidate who used a racist slur against Chinese people. Referring to the incident, he said: “If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you’re going for?” In June 2016, Nigel unveiled an anti-immigrant poster that suggested that immigration was at “Breaking Point”, as part of the leave campaign. The poster was reported to the police on the grounds that it aimed to incite racial hatred. When Britain left the EU in 2016, Nigel boasted that the campaign had been won “without a bullet being fired”. This was eight days after Labour MP Jo Cox was fatally shot highlighting, again, what a truly classy guy this man is.

 

 

Farage doing insider trading with hedge funds:

Farage was helped immensely in his career by Hedge Fund manager Robert Mercer. On the day of the EU Referendum Farage appeared on TV and helped “short the pound” by lying about the result. Basically he claimed that the Remain vote had won by giving a statement to Sky News, which he knew to be incorrect. This was immediately broadcast to 127 countries across the globe. Meanwhile Hedge Funds mysteriously got the correct data and were able to bet on the facts not the speculation. Very rich people made a lot of money, thanks to the lies of Nigel Farage (the man of the people). Here is the link to the video.

https://twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1125298640501858304

 

Nigel Farage and the Heritage Foundation 

Wouldn’t it be just too convenient if somehow Nigel Farage was connected to the Heritage Foundation? Yes it would and he is.

In 2015 in an open letter to the American public printed in Breitbart, Farage stated:

“Dear American friends,

You are on the verge of losing your greatest ever ally – and I felt moved enough by this fact to visit your country’s capital this week, a trip which I have very much enjoyed.

I’m very grateful to the Heritage Foundation for providing myself and a group of European politicians with a platform, it is clear that the think tank community in Washington, D.C. is alive and well, and absolutely dwarves anything that now exists in London.”

Just prior to the release of that letter Farage had made a speech for the Heritage Foundation in which it was reported:

“Nigel Farage has said that he shares concerns about an out-of-touch political class with the controversial Republican Donald Trump, during a speech in the US in which the Ukip leader also warned about the security risk posed by immigrants. Farage made the comments at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC, where he was asked whether he accepted the idea of himself as a “British Donald Trump”.

Farage answered the room of Oil Tycoons, multi millionaires, billionaires and aristocrats:

“I do think some of the things he’s picked up on in the last few weeks are very similar to the kind of things we’ve picked up on in British politics – the feeling that there is a centralised bureaucracy in Washington, maybe not connecting with some of the concerns of ordinary people.”

Ordinary people? Is he serious? He was talking to the Heritage Foundation for crying out loud!

Anyway it would appear that the similar tropes of appealing to the disenfranchised were already being explored by Heritage before Trump was even the candidate as the above quote proves.

Nigel Farage was introduced to his benefactor Arron Banks by UK businessman Jim Mellon, a descendent of the Pittsburgh Mellon banking family. Mellon also sits on the board of the think tank Initiative for Free Trade, of which Daniel Hannan is also a member and gave over £100,000 of his own money to the leave campaign. By massive coincidence Mellon is also a member of the Heritage Foundation.

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.channel4.com/news/brexit-party-mep-worked-for-cambridge-analytica?fbclid=IwAR2Ol5ZEHC6hPJpHubX2AhrJzWXrKtrHT6mJHvpvpSTBb14v8_ZS201VuuE

https://www.channel4.com/news/nigel-farages-funding-secrets-revealed

https://www.indy100.com/article/brexit-deal-lates-quotes-liam-fox-theresa-may-nigel-farage-eu-michael-gove-8636801

https://www.indy100.com/article/no-deal-brexit-adequate-food-boris-johnson-david-davis-dominic-raab-8463121

https://www.indy100.com/article/nigel-farage-brexit-party-mep-salary-video-european-elections-8916196

https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/brexiter-mep-nigel-farage-entitled-to-172-000-payout-from-eu-1.811732

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/press-releases/farages-voting-record-on-fishing-makes-mockery-of-new-election-poster/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/09/nigel-farage-fishermen-ignored-ukip-brexit

http://gal-dem.com/a-complete-history-nigel-farages-political-sins/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arron_Banks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Wigmore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Cummings

“Arron Banks: the man who bought Brexit,” NewStatesman, October 13, 2016. Archived November 30, 2018. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/9iv4z

Peter Walker and Jim Waterson. “Arron Banks faces criminal inquiry over Brexit campaign,” The Guardian, November 1, 2018. Archived November 30, 2018. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/z2ywh