Has Reform peaked?

Maremia

Fascinating, MaizieD.
Hope the momentum keeps growing.

Here's another worry about the channelling of Russian money that some might care to read.

The Mandelson Amendment: Why Burnham Has an Opportunity to Clamp Down on Russian Interference

A persistent whiff of scandal has been drifting through the corridors of Westminster, connected to Peter Mandelson. Now on their summer break, MPs might be reflecting on just how much they underestimated the influence he had, and not just within No 10. His downfall was not only about his friendship with Epstein and passing Government secrets. It was about how he, and by extension the Labour Party, became implicated in Russia’s efforts to capture our democracy.

www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-mandelson-amendment-why-burnham?

Can this be averted by an amendment to the forthcoming Representation of the People Bill?

Fascinating, MaizieD.
Hope the momentum keeps growing.

I didn’t say it did
I was just illustrating how people with money can hide things

No, not really. This is what a super injunction is used for:

Extreme Secrecy: They are granted by the High Court only in rare, exceptional circumstances where revealing the information or the lawsuit would cause severe, immediate harm.
Past Uses: They have historically been used by high-profile individuals and celebrities to protect embarrassing personal information from coming to light, as well as in rare national security or sensitive government data-leak situations.

That does not include undeclared financial dealings, which all MPs are required to declare.

Bit like politicians of all stripes who take out super injunctions so we can’t find stuff out that they don’t want us to know so 🤷‍♀️

Carole Cadwalladr published an article in The Nerve in July which covers both Cottrell and Banks and the reluctance of the press and regulators to investigate their financial dealings.

She also asks more or less the same the question which I asked earlier on this thread. She has answers for it. One of those answers is the power of wealth to threaten investigating agencies with legal action which they can't afford to fight. So they back off.

Why now? That’s one of the question I keep on being asked. Why are Nigel Farage’s finances suddenly under scrutiny with a rightwing Murdoch-owned newspaper leading the charge?

www.thenerve.news/p/nigel-farage-carole-cadwalladr-brexit-party-arron-banks-george-cottrell-funding-electoral-commission?

Long, but worth a read

Indeed. Rock's agents, Wilton (IOM) Limited are under investigation for money laundering.

Arron Banks was a UKIP donor.

Banks also provided £12.4 million of services to leave the EU via a company controlled by him despite the referendum spending being capped at £700,000. The services were provided just before the spending cap took effect in April 2016. There was a furore and questions at the time and calls for the NCA and Britain's financial regulators to look into Bank's companies control funding the Brexit campaign due to the constraints and limitations of the Electoral Commission which started to investigate.

Banks was also reported to have given Farage £450,000 after the Brexit vote via Rock Services Ltd a company owned by Banks. Banks sought to raise an extra £130k also from supporters to cover security. Fareg dismissed all claims at the time as a "smear".

He did. I always get him mixed up with his American counterpart, Steve Bannon (both cast from the same mould, one a Trump enabler the other Farage). Arron Banks, Cambridge Analytica, they were all part of the push for Brexit ( and imo you can throw in a bit of Russian interference, too).

Didn't Arron Banks help to fund tbe BREXIT campaign?

Casdon

I wonder if there is a DNA link, or something on the computer of the Ann Widdecombe murderer that links to the attempted burglary. I doubt if it’s anything to do with the financial dealings.

Yes, I assumed that the link was found on computer of the man accused of killing Anne Widdecombe.

If the accused resembles, the profile of other people accused and convicted of similar crimes, they have usually researched and kept files on several people and planned more than one attack.

I wonder if there is a DNA link, or something on the computer of the Ann Widdecombe murderer that links to the attempted burglary. I doubt if it’s anything to do with the financial dealings.

According to the BBC this morning the anti-terrorist police have re-opened the investigation into an alleged arson attack at a house used by Nigel Farage. These are the same people who are investigating AW’s murder.

The met police officers who closed the previous investigation have put themselves forward to the police complaints division.

The prominent Reform UK member and Brexit campaigner Arron Banks is said to have set private investigators on a Sunday Times journalist after he broke a series of stories about Nigel Farage. Banks is alleged to have paid for the services of investigators to examine Gabriel Pogrund, editor of the paper’s Insight investigations team.

The detail emerged in the New Statesman yesterday. When approached for comment, Banks did not appear to deny it. He is said to have instructed Precision Risk and Intelligence, a firm he once owned, to examine Pogrund. Pogrund is believed to have been targeted after a story in the Sunday Times last month revealed that Farage has received financial support from the convicted criminal George Cottrell, known as “Posh George”.

In response to the New Statesman report, Banks said: “We believe the Sunday Times used hacked information and that was an area of interest. We do have an investigative arm that’s got advanced capabilities.”

Asked directly whether he had paid investigators to look into Pogrund, he said: “When you live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

The Sunday Times has denied the accusation that its stories were based on illegally sourced information. The paper described the hiring of private investigators to snoop on its journalists as “reprehensible”. 

A spokesperson said: “If what Mr Banks claims to have done is true then it is reprehensible that his reaction to our reporting is to place a journalist under surveillance … This story was not based on hacked information. It was based on responsible and professional journalism.”

The Metropolitan police are also investigating Reform UK’s finances. Reform clearly doesn’t like being investigated - either by the Police, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and now a Sunday Times journalist

Good one Casdon 😃

Menopauselbitch

No one is saying anything about Yvette Cooper

We don’t talk about Bruno either (niche reference).

I understand that the French authorities have said " non" to these postulations.
Mr Farage, apparently, is not troubled by this,was all will be fine, he says, when Mme Le Penn is in charge.
Ah, the Brave New World of Mr Farage's fantasies ( he whose party has fewer MPs than the SNP)

No one is saying anything about Yvette Cooper

alita

I don't understand why Farage gets so much airtime! His latest 'policy' using the Royal Navy to return illegal immigrants to France has so many plot holes a child could see through it. Yet, it features on prime time news again and again as if it were really a serious and feasible plan!

The Navy have stated that under maritime law they are obliged to rescue those at sea. So how is Reform going to circumvent that law? They are just talking a lot of hot air as their pledge to use the Navy will be impossible to achieve.

The Guardian have been on their tail for a long time, but I think what is different with the recent Times exposes is the level of detail being released, almost daily. People are listening now, where comparatively few were before because of the perceived bias.

LemonJam

I agree the Times and ST have more journalistic integrity than The Telegraph and Daily Mail.

That’s a very low bar sadly

I agree the Times and ST have more journalistic integrity than The Telegraph and Daily Mail.

Journalist Carole Cadwalladr has been writing about Farage & Reform's financial affairs but for years the big titles ignored her its only recently that they have turned against him. Coutt's chucking him out was the start. She's a great journalist with an impressive cv, well worth looking up

www.europesays.com/uk/1095831/#google_vignette

The journalistic integrity has been retained at the Times and Sunday Times, that’s the difference compared to the other titles you mention Lemonjam. I don’t know why that’s the case, although for many years it has been one of the more reliable sources.

True Casdon but the Sunday Times is headed and controlled by The Murdoch family so quite significant that this year it has been scrutinising Farage so closely. Murdoch is very powerful so significant that Farage clashed with the ST editors so vigorously recently.

It's not just the Sunday Times that has pivoted to a notable tougher and more critical tone regarding Farage- the right wing Telegraph and Daily Mail have also both begun to scrutinise his personal finances, property interests and Reform's funding sources. It's new territory for Farage and he doesn't like it.