If anyone still needed to know just how crass and bigoted those in and around the Leave EU campaign really are, today brought more proof, as the alleged “Man who bankrolled Brexit” Arron Banks found himself and his pals referred to the National Crime Agency by the Electoral Commission. The EC’s legal chief Bob Posner did not hold back.
“We have reasonable grounds to suspect money given to Better for the Country came from impermissible sources and that Mr Banks and Ms Bilney, the responsible person for Leave.EU, knowingly concealed the true circumstances under which this money was provided … This is significant because at least £2.9m of this money was used to fund referendum spending and donations during the regulated period of the EU referendum”.
There was more. “Our investigation has unveiled evidence that suggests criminal offences have been committed which fall beyond the remit of the Commission … This is why we have handed our evidence to the NCA to allow them to investigate and take any appropriate law enforcement action. This is now a criminal investigation”.
Banksy responded in true shifty spiv style: “There is no evidence of any wrongdoing from the companies I own. I am a UK taxpayer and I have never received any foreign donations. The Electoral Commission has produced no evidence to the contrary”. We’re not talking about his companies, nor whether he personally received foreign donations, and it’s not for him to gainsay the EC’s evidence. And did anyone say “money laundering”?
But he did have one card up his sleeve: he put out a statement, which at the very end says “Isn’t it funny that none of the financial contributions made by George Soros to British political campaigns are ever subject to any level of scrutiny by the Electoral Commission despite his being a foreign national”. It was Soros all along!
This, of course, is both irrelevant - George Soros, as Jessica Elgot of the Guardian has pointed out, made no donations during an election period - and the crudest form of dog-whistling. Arron Banks is, like rather too many in our free and fearless press right now, indulging in low-level anti-Semitism as a diversionary tactic.
No, nothing to do with him ...
And to no surprise at all, those who have been so enthusiastic over shouting “anti-Semitism” at the Labour Party recently have been absent elsewhere this time. Ross Kempsell, former apprentice sandwich monitor to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, just put out Banks’ statement with no comment. His former berth also missed the dog-whistle, instead praising Banksy’s dribblings as “punchy”.
... but potential for Squeaky FBI finger up the bum time
The reality is that Arron Banks is prepared to use the crudest racism to deflect from his latest little local difficulty. And that the tireless Carole Cadwalladr of the Observer, together with the good people at Open Democracy, have been proved right once again.
How many more from this photo will be following Banksy?
Plus, of course, with the FBI now investigating Steve Bannon’s role in Cambridge Analytica, that brings one more well known name back into the frame: a pal of both Banksy and Bannon whose collar-feeling moment is long overdue.
That person is Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. I’ll just leave that one there.
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10 comments:
Well, according to some media it's either the Jews or the Russians.
In it's earliest bulletins, laughably predictable Beeb "News" managed to drag in the Russkis without the slightest evidence. You know, the sort of thing required in a court of law let alone a court of justice. The Beeb, like the rest of media, long ago dispensed with this straightforward measure of truth as opposed to mere suggestion or hollow assertion.
If it turns out the finance came from some British anti-EU far right corporation or organisation will the Beeb apologise for this? Or will it follow the long established media process of forgetting its "misleading" assertion?
Meanwhile, Soros looks clean on this one. I doubt even he would risk the usual Langley/Vauxhall Cross two-track approach on such a divisive issue.
I hope Arron Banks gets jailed and there's a rerun of the referendum, but you are totally wrong to think that criticising one Jew equals criticising "the Jews" - and it's amazing you didn't realise that before you published.
@2
The point is that using "Soros" is not criticising one person, but is code for "Jews", as are "Globalists" and indeed, all too often, "Goldman Sachs".
So there is nothing to be amazed at.
You keep insisting that Tim Fenton.
Would criticising Benjamin Netanyahu be see the same way?
How about Nigel Lawson?
Personally I think it’s not right, but the left are going to run with this till Soros stops being someone in political life.
"Isn’t it funny that none of the financial contributions made by George Soros to British political campaigns are ever subject to any level of scrutiny by the Electoral Commission"
There's a clue in the word "Electoral".
Tim 20:33.
A sweeping generalised claim that is.
For SOME people doubtless it is "code" for an attack on Judaism. But NOT ALL.
I regard Soros as a spiv and a fraudulent "liberal" who may or may not be trying to assuage his conscience through "gifts" from his ill gotten gains. I couldn't care less about his supposed religion. The same applies to anyone who operates in similar fashion anywhere in the world.
You know very well corporate media avoids listing the guilty parties and the system that allows and rewards them. Even with his billions Soros is only a cog in the wheel. But ultimately he's no better than the rest of them.
@Anonymous 18:07
Alright Mr. Greenwald, we get it.
@damon
You surely know the usage of anti-Semitic dogwhistles by these people. 'George Soros' has long been used to mean Jews in this discourse, and before it was 'globalists' and before it was the Zinoviev letter, before it was 'shadowy cabal,' etc. We are familiar with this pattern going back years and years, it is a pattern that used coded language to get away with blaming everything on Jewish people.
If people cannot see the direct link that has been parroted a million times that 'Soros' equals "the Jews" they are being disingenuous and insulting us.
This is a well worn theme that has been sophisticated since Hitler came to power. 'Soros' has replaced 'the Rothschilds" as the indication that Jews are behind everything.
In fact, why in the hell is George Soros even named as he just was by the appalling fascist loving US president as being behind the so-called "caravan" of immigrants (riddled with ISIL Leprosy carriers)?. It plays to the extreme right wing of the US who have for decades promoted (dog-whistled)the antisemitic theme. Nor has Soros ever been shown tohave committed an illegal act while he puts money where he believes will best promote democracy as millions of others do, unlike those who have poured hundreds of $Millions into right-wing politics like the Koch brothers?.
You are NOT getting away with attempting to divorce the Soros /Jew connection.
Sam 04:22.
Help us out here.
Can you kindly further explain your final sentence (question)?
In your own time.
@nparker
There are people who have a bizarre Jewish fetish, but they are quite a minority I think.
I think people often overestimate the number of people who think like that.
For a majority of people in the U.K., Jews are just another religion.
Apart from the ones in the religious clothes. They do seem a bit like the Amish.
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