Did Russia buy Brexit?

[SoloD]

It is alleged that a very substantial part of the Leave campaign funding came from overseas (which is strictly against the law) possibly from Russia.

A large proportion of this money was paid to Cambridge Analytica who illegally harvested peoples data on facebook, to target them with micro adverts, not all of them we know what they said.

Up to £8 million is under investigation.

Add this to the blatant lies of the Vote Leave campaign which they now admit were untrue (the 350 million a week for the NHS for example) is there any legitimacy left in the result of the referendum?

This is what the polls indicate
uk.businessinsider.com/brexit-polls-show-britain-wants-to-remain-in-eu-2018-9

It is alleged that a very substantial part of the Leave campaign funding came from overseas (which is strictly against the law) possibly from Russia.

Unfortunately "It is (only) alleged (at this point) that a very substantial part of the unofficial Leave campaign funding came from overseas (which is strictly against the law) possibly from Russia."

Actually I think it might be a storm in a teacup. 'Overseas' in this case means 'not in the UK', so shonky tax-avoiding funds held 'legitimately' in offshore (IoM for example) companies count as 'overseas'. I think that possibly that might be the (non-)issue and the original source of the funds won't be relevant.

I have money in an IoM company and it wouldn't have occurred to me that I couldn't just transfer it to my UK bank account and use it for whatever I want, taxation rules allowing.

He's still a nasty, self-serving cunt though.

Ooh look. BBC is breaking sub judice laws.
They wouldn't want to prejudice the trial would they?

@BBCPolitics
On #marr on Sunday Arron Banks will respond to National Crime Agency investigation into campaign funding during Brexit referendum
@Arron_banks

I'd be grateful for MNHQ guidance on what actually is sub judice round this.

I've been following this for a while, and wouldn't want to post anything that endangered a trial.

Banks hasn't been charged yet though, has he? And may never be. So there isn't a trial in the offing at the moment.

I think the US money and influences from people like the Mercers with a very clear private agenda is equally worrying.

Ditto the American links to the Institute of Economic Affairs which actually advises the govt.

Stuff like this seems almost the work of fiction -yet it's shockingly true.

Since when is it sub judice to mention that Putin's cronies lent Arron Banks the money with which he funded the Leave campaign ?

There is no trial going on.

Its been reported in Private Eye and the Economist for AGES

Putin has a vested interest in weakening the EU and NATO
hence his blatant support for Brexit and Trump

Well if Russia did buy Brexit then they'd better send me some dosh pronto. I made my decision on my own & wasn't influenced by anything advertised (largely because I don't go anywhere where I could see adverts, I don't buy a paper & I rarely watch tv!). It sounds a bit like some Remainers wanting to try and stir it up again...

This article is over a YEAR old:

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy&ved=2ahUKEwjeq5vt_bXeAhVLI8AKHdL2DfgQFjAAegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2ggkh1wQgAnOH7U84_I2Ba" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy&ved=2ahUKEwjeq5vt_bXeAhVLI8AKHdL2DfgQFjAAegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw2ggkh1wQgAnOH7U84_I2Ba

Potentially sub judice. It could jeapordise a future trial.

If some one's about to be involved in a criminal investigation, why would he be invited onto the state media to put his version of events?

In answer to the OP. No, it's not just Russia.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-arron-banks-trump-russia-telephone-number-alexander-yakovenko-andy-wigmore-a8395111.html

It is also our own intellectual laziness, naivety and complacency which is at fault.

The UK and USA have done similar things around the world in the past so I guess this is a taste of our own medicine.

It will be impossible to prove

RangeRider, do you live in a box with no outside communication?
Any conversations you’ve had about Brexit will have had a whole range of influences, including targeted fb adverts.

How did you make your decision if you don’t look at tv, newspapers, anywhere with adverts? I get that you believe you’ve not been influenced but, to even have a view, you must have been. I think you’re being naive. I know you won’t like my opinion.

I’m not saying your decision was wrong. You chose to vote leave - that was your decision to make, but to assert that you were not influenced in any way by Leave.EU’s campaign is not credible. Plus, I think you were suggesting that you = 17m or so, or your argument is irrelevant.

Clearly some people would have been influenced by the Russian funded propaganda and as the vote was so club we, we should have another referendum

Useful timeline.
fairvote.uk/tag/andy-wigmore/

RangeRider, do you live in a box with no outside communication?
No, I have autism. I don't socialise much & when I do I don't talk politics. I don't bother with the tv & I don't use Facebook other than to follow a couple of people who don't talk about Brexit.
I had my opinions about the EU long, long before Brexit was even a possibility.
And I'm only suggesting that if I'm capable of making up my mind without the Vote Leave input then so are plenty of other people. We're not all lemmings you know.

We're not all lemmings you know

Voters are innocent. There may have been good reasons to 'leave' in a measured, organised way.

The way external players compromised the vote, acted illegally, and committed potentially criminal acts is not innocent.

Far from it.

What is in it for them?

Oh well if we're allowed to talk about it.

Banks' bsuiness partner in South Africa has taken him to court alleging Banks was seeking Russian investment in their diamond mines. And that Banks diverted investment funds raised for the mines into Brexit campaigning.

The companies involved are called Supermix and Distribution Rocks, in case anyone keeps track of these things.

Exclusive: Court documents claim new Arron Banks links with Russia
www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-court-documents-claim-new-arron-banks-links-with-russia

How has it become common knowledge that Banks is under investigation anyway though? It's not an announcement that "a 52 year old male is under investigation" is it? Who has announced that he's under investigation and what gives them the right to do so?

I don't object to it, I just find it odd that it's been made so public. I thought they'd introduced rules about this recently? Maybe not?

Arron Banks' business partner, Chris Kimber, has also alleged Banks discussed training mercenaries to reinstate a Lesotho politician after an attempted coup.

Diamonds, guns and Russian cash: The extraordinary new claims against Arron Banks
www.channel4.com/news/diamonds-guns-and-russian-cash-the-extraordinary-new-claims-against-arron-banks

Don't know what of this will turn out to be true of course. But what's very clear is that Banks' colourful denials are worth nothing in themselves.

He hurls insults and accusations and diversions at the drop of a hat. IIRC, when someone from Cambridge Analytica (Alexander Nix?) was actually sitting in front of the Commons DCMS committee, Banks was live tweeting calling them a liar. And got called a liar back, for his pains.

It's also clear that someone tried to obscure the origin of a £425,000 pro-Brexit donation.

The strange tale of the DUP, Brexit, a mysterious £425,000 donation and a Saudi prince
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-dup-brexit-donations-saudi-arabia-tale-tories-theresa-may-a7782681.html

The story began with a four-page, wrap-around cover advert in the Metro newspaper promoting the Leave campaign ahead of the Brexit referendum in June 2016, an extraordinary move that cost some £282,000.

This turned out to have been paid for by the DUP, which was odd as the party only stands in Northern Ireland where the Metro is not published.

Under Northern Ireland’s electoral laws, political donations do not need to be publicly declared, a legacy from the region’s Troubles, when funding a political party might make someone a target for terrorists.

However in February, after some political pressure over the issue, the DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson revealed that the adverts had been paid using a £425,000 donation from a group called the Constitutional Research Council (CRC), chaired by former Scottish Conservative vice-chairman and Glasgow-based businessman, Richard Cook.

This sparked further questions about the ultimate source of the money. Mr Cook told The Sunday Times that the CRC had three other members, but declined to identify them.

BBC Spotlight: Brexit, Dark Money and the DUP
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-44624299

A BBC Spotlight investigation into the man behind the DUP's record £435,000 donation during the EU referendum has uncovered a trail of illegal activity and foreign money.

Richard Cook shipped illegal tyre waste to India in 2009. He presented fake documents to the authorities and left a shipping company with a bill of more than £1m. Mr Cook denies involvement in illegal waste.

Mr Cook, the chairman of the Constitutional Research Council which made the donation, and its only known member is also a former vice chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

He was a founding director and shareholder of a company called DDR Recycling in Glasgow which has since gone out of business owing £150,000 in unpaid tax.

Spotlight travelled to Ukraine where Mr Cook's company had apparently signed an $80m contract in 2013. The contract purported to be for the purchase of used railway tracks.

But it transpired the person behind the company in Ukraine was a convicted criminal from Germany who had been sentenced to eight years in jail for his role in a large-scale food fraud.
[...]
Spotlight revealed that Richard Cook had a deeper role in the DUP's spending in the referendum campaign than previously known and that a £280,000 advertisement in London's Metro newspaper was booked by Cook himself.

So yeah, there are plenty of "foreign funding" leads to investigate.

None of them being FishesaPlenty's unthinking transfer from her Isle of Man investment account.

Interesting. Especially since one of the reasons Brexit supporters give for leaving the EU is the wish to “regain sovereignty”. Ironic indeed if all this is true.

The simple answer to the OP's question is YES. Russia bought brexit and Trump. Putin is the most successful politician of our times.

@RangeRider

Advertising would only have to influence a few 100 1000 votes and there leave or remain have a majority.

The amount of tweets and fb posts shared before, after and during the referendum were massive! just because you didn't doesn't make it any less concerning.

Our democracy is a hard fought and precocious thing, delaying brexit until these allegations are proved to be false is the only way forward.