We promised you a big story and here it is!
UKIP's leader, three MEPs and a Regional Organiser are exposed as crooks in the Sunday Times.
It won't do their election prospects much good!
So will UKIP's Leadership withdraw the whip from Stuart Agnew? He has, after all, openly admitted on film that he has been illegally obtaining tax payer's money by deceit in order to fund Peter Reeve.
David Bannerman is similarly involved in this fraud and deception.
Will Stuart Agnew & David Bannerman be suspended as UKIP MEPs? Will they face a full disciplinary hearing?
And will Peter Reeve, who was also involved in this criminal activity, be sacked? His position is clearly untenable.
And will Pearson and Farage resign? Both have been exposed as willing to accept illegal donations. Elcom will be interested!
So once again UKIP's leadership are exposed as spivs and liars. The whole rotten lot should resign. UKIP is now part of the problem. It is certainly not part of the solution!
The videos of Agnew and Pearson foolishly admitting their dishonesty can be viewed by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.
And hats off to the Sunday Times for exposing their dishonesty. And a big thank you to both GLW and John West for supplying them with important information on UKIP's corrupt officials:
There’s more than one way to hide a donor
Solvej Krause, Daniel Foggo and Claire Newell
DESPITE having one of its former MEPs jailed for expenses fraud last year, the UK Independence party has benefited from the current distrust of the larger parties and is fielding its candidates in the general election on an anti-sleaze platform.
Yet its commitment to upholding political standards has now been revealed as less than perfect.
Stuart Agnew, a UKIP MEP, and Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the party’s leader, have told undercover reporters how a real donor's name could be kept secret by passing tens of thousands of pounds through intermediaries. If carried out, one or more of the suggested methods could have been illegal.
Our disclosures will embarrass UKIP and Pearson, who also told the undercover reporter that some UKIP members were “neanderthals” and described Agnew, 60, as “one of our only really sane MEPs”.
An undercover reporter approached Agnew last month, saying that her aunt wanted to make a substantial donation to UKIP while keeping her identity secret. This was, the reporter explained, because her aunt was a senior civil servant who would find it professionally embarrassing to have her name publicly linked with the party.
Agnew, who joined UKIP 11 years ago and was elected to the European parliament in 2009, was initially circumspect. Asked if the real donor’s name would have to be revealed publicly, he said: “I’m afraid if it’s significant it would have to be.” But within minutes he appeared to contradict himself.
“If she can trust you she could give you a huge sum of money and you could give it to the party,” he said.
“I will try and look into all these things though to see what can be done so there are a few options,” he added.
A few days later, Agnew rang to say that after taking advice from “experts” he had “encouraging information” and suggested a meeting.
Last Thursday he met the undercover reporter at a hotel in Colchester, Essex. Agnew began by outlining the law on giving anonymous donations. Any donation of more than £7,500 to a party headquarters, or £1,500 to a party individual or branch, must be declared to the Electoral Commission and the donor’s name given.
Although Agnew did not mention it, if a donation of more than £7,500 is made via a third party or agent, the details of the real donor must also be given to the political party so that they can be supplied to the commission, which then publishes them on its website. Making anonymous large donations by proxy is not allowed.
After summarising for the reporter the level permitted for anonymous donations, Agnew said: “Now this is where it gets a bit more complicated. She [the aunt] can give money to what’s known as an unincorporated association.”
Unincorporated associations, which do not have to file accounts, are allowed to make donations to political parties. There have long been suspicions, however, that they can be used as “filters” to pass money from donors who want to remain anonymous.
New rules state that donations totalling more than £25,000 a year from an unincorporated association will result in further scrutiny from the commission. It then demands a full list of everyone who has given to the association over the course of the previous year.
Even for donations of less than £25,000, however, the association is still required to disclose the true name of any donor who is using it as a proxy to give money.
Agnew suggested using Global Britain, which was set up in 1997 by Pearson and two other peers and now also includes fellow UKIP peer Lord Willoughby de Broke. It describes itself on its website as a “geo-political think tank” which conducts Eurosceptic research. Last May it donated £80,000 to UKIP in the run-up to the Euro elections.
Agnew said: “I’ve spoken to Nigel Farage [the UKIP MEP and former leader] and he says at the moment you can put £25,000 into Global Britain and you will remain anonymous.”
He went on: “Of course, there is an element of trust though that your aunt wants that money into UKIP. Now, as the thing is run by Malcolm Pearson and as he is the leader of UKIP, there’s a pretty good chance, isn’t there, that that money will go in the right direction.” Agnew later rang Farage in front of the reporter to recheck the possibility of giving the amount to UKIP via Global Britain.
Agnew continued to run down his list of ways of giving anonymously. He said: “Another thing she [the aunt] could do: you are her niece — she could give you £3,000 before April 5, in other words before the end of the tax year ... as a present, as a gift. You would then immediately give UKIP a donation of £3,000.” Agnew said she could then do the same next week — now in a new financial year — and in both cases avoid any tax penalties.
Adding all those methods together would allow the “aunt” to donate £38,500 anonymously, he said.
Then he raised the stakes even higher. “Your mother [sic] can make you a loan of £100,000 to buy a house ... and you would then become a donor to the party for £100,000 and your name would go up on the [commission] website.” Agnew said when the real donor died, she could state in her will that the loan was now a gift, thus writing it off. “You are seen to be the donor rather than her,” he said.
He added: “A loan can be for any amount if you are looking at a way of getting a substantial sum of money in your name. But remember, your name would then go on the website. And it would take quite an investigative journalist to try and work out [who you are].
“Nobody knows your particular status, you could have inherited money.” During the meeting Agnew also admitted that he was using taxpayers’ money to pay half the salary of an assistant — UKIP regional organiser Peter Reeve — whose amount of actual work for him was “virtually none”.
“I can tell you that Peter is paid partly by me out of my assistance allowance here partly by David [Campbell] Bannerman [another UKIP MEP]. He does very little work for us, virtually none. He is working for the party. And that’s strictly illegal.”
(Junius says: Peter should soon be in search of a new job. He could always go back to being a toilet attendant!)
Salaries paid via MEPs’ assistance allowance must not fund party work. The EU’s anti-fraud watchdog Olaf has been investigating some of Agnew’s fellow MEPs over a similar matter.
The day after the meeting, Agnew spoke on the phone to the reporter a number of times. He said he had talked to Pearson about the possibility of making the donation to UKIP via Global Britain.
“He did confirm that two anonymous donations can be made. Up to £7,500 can be made directly to the party and £25,000 to Global Britain,” he said, describing the latter method as a “loophole”. “If your aunt is willing to give us £32,500 [£25,000 plus £7,500] then it can be done anonymously.”
Another undercover reporter then spoke to Pearson, who said the money given to his unincorporated association would be passed “straight on” to UKIP: “I could pass it on the same day.”
He insisted: “The Electoral Commission knows that we will be doing all this, because someone else who is a major Conservative donor also wanted similar anonymity. The main thing is that it mustn’t be a straight filter.”
Asked if he could guarantee her name would not come out, he said: “Yes, we did it in the European elections [in 2009]. We passed on £80,000 from one person in effect ... and that caused no difficulty at all.” He said he would check with the Electoral Commission and “if there was any doubt I would honestly rather go without rather than risk it”.
When confronted, Pearson said he thought unincorporated associations were allowed to pass on donations of not more than £25,000 directly. He also said he would have given the donor’s name to the commission, although he said he was “not sure” if he had passed on the name of Patrick Barbour, a former Tory donor who he said was the person who donated £80,000 to UKIP through them last year. He claimed Barbour had given Global Britain £100,000 saying he would be “happy” if most of it went to UKIP.
He explained why he thought Barbour had wanted to stay anonymous: “He’d rather the Conservative party didn’t know he was giving that sort of money, you know,” he said.
He said: “It still is my understanding that I do not think that what I said yesterday to your [undercover] reporter is wrong. I’m sorry if it is, and I’ll apologise.” Pearson said he was regularly in touch with the commission over Global Britain and donations.
Agnew said: “It’s not cut and dried and the acts are complicated. The law is often very difficult to interpret.”
Bannerman denied Reeve did no work for him and Agnew. He said Reeve worked for UKIP only “in his spare time”. Reeve agreed.
Farage said: “I said to Stuart Agnew, I can’t take this any further, that she [the aunt] would have to come and meet face to face with Lord Pearson and talk about it.”
Barbour said of his donation last year: “I am pretty sure that I left it up to [Pearson’s] discretion what it was spent on.”
In a later call he said he had not given to Global Britain in order to conceal an anonymous donation to UKIP.
A spokesman for the commission said it would take “appropriate action” if breaches of the rules had occurred.
To see the original: LINK
UKIP's leader, three MEPs and a Regional Organiser are exposed as crooks in the Sunday Times.
It won't do their election prospects much good!
So will UKIP's Leadership withdraw the whip from Stuart Agnew? He has, after all, openly admitted on film that he has been illegally obtaining tax payer's money by deceit in order to fund Peter Reeve.
David Bannerman is similarly involved in this fraud and deception.
Will Stuart Agnew & David Bannerman be suspended as UKIP MEPs? Will they face a full disciplinary hearing?
And will Peter Reeve, who was also involved in this criminal activity, be sacked? His position is clearly untenable.
And will Pearson and Farage resign? Both have been exposed as willing to accept illegal donations. Elcom will be interested!
So once again UKIP's leadership are exposed as spivs and liars. The whole rotten lot should resign. UKIP is now part of the problem. It is certainly not part of the solution!
The videos of Agnew and Pearson foolishly admitting their dishonesty can be viewed by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.
And hats off to the Sunday Times for exposing their dishonesty. And a big thank you to both GLW and John West for supplying them with important information on UKIP's corrupt officials:
There’s more than one way to hide a donor
Solvej Krause, Daniel Foggo and Claire Newell
DESPITE having one of its former MEPs jailed for expenses fraud last year, the UK Independence party has benefited from the current distrust of the larger parties and is fielding its candidates in the general election on an anti-sleaze platform.
Yet its commitment to upholding political standards has now been revealed as less than perfect.
Stuart Agnew, a UKIP MEP, and Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the party’s leader, have told undercover reporters how a real donor's name could be kept secret by passing tens of thousands of pounds through intermediaries. If carried out, one or more of the suggested methods could have been illegal.
Our disclosures will embarrass UKIP and Pearson, who also told the undercover reporter that some UKIP members were “neanderthals” and described Agnew, 60, as “one of our only really sane MEPs”.
An undercover reporter approached Agnew last month, saying that her aunt wanted to make a substantial donation to UKIP while keeping her identity secret. This was, the reporter explained, because her aunt was a senior civil servant who would find it professionally embarrassing to have her name publicly linked with the party.
Agnew, who joined UKIP 11 years ago and was elected to the European parliament in 2009, was initially circumspect. Asked if the real donor’s name would have to be revealed publicly, he said: “I’m afraid if it’s significant it would have to be.” But within minutes he appeared to contradict himself.
“If she can trust you she could give you a huge sum of money and you could give it to the party,” he said.
“I will try and look into all these things though to see what can be done so there are a few options,” he added.
A few days later, Agnew rang to say that after taking advice from “experts” he had “encouraging information” and suggested a meeting.
Last Thursday he met the undercover reporter at a hotel in Colchester, Essex. Agnew began by outlining the law on giving anonymous donations. Any donation of more than £7,500 to a party headquarters, or £1,500 to a party individual or branch, must be declared to the Electoral Commission and the donor’s name given.
Although Agnew did not mention it, if a donation of more than £7,500 is made via a third party or agent, the details of the real donor must also be given to the political party so that they can be supplied to the commission, which then publishes them on its website. Making anonymous large donations by proxy is not allowed.
After summarising for the reporter the level permitted for anonymous donations, Agnew said: “Now this is where it gets a bit more complicated. She [the aunt] can give money to what’s known as an unincorporated association.”
Unincorporated associations, which do not have to file accounts, are allowed to make donations to political parties. There have long been suspicions, however, that they can be used as “filters” to pass money from donors who want to remain anonymous.
New rules state that donations totalling more than £25,000 a year from an unincorporated association will result in further scrutiny from the commission. It then demands a full list of everyone who has given to the association over the course of the previous year.
Even for donations of less than £25,000, however, the association is still required to disclose the true name of any donor who is using it as a proxy to give money.
Agnew suggested using Global Britain, which was set up in 1997 by Pearson and two other peers and now also includes fellow UKIP peer Lord Willoughby de Broke. It describes itself on its website as a “geo-political think tank” which conducts Eurosceptic research. Last May it donated £80,000 to UKIP in the run-up to the Euro elections.
Agnew said: “I’ve spoken to Nigel Farage [the UKIP MEP and former leader] and he says at the moment you can put £25,000 into Global Britain and you will remain anonymous.”
He went on: “Of course, there is an element of trust though that your aunt wants that money into UKIP. Now, as the thing is run by Malcolm Pearson and as he is the leader of UKIP, there’s a pretty good chance, isn’t there, that that money will go in the right direction.” Agnew later rang Farage in front of the reporter to recheck the possibility of giving the amount to UKIP via Global Britain.
Agnew continued to run down his list of ways of giving anonymously. He said: “Another thing she [the aunt] could do: you are her niece — she could give you £3,000 before April 5, in other words before the end of the tax year ... as a present, as a gift. You would then immediately give UKIP a donation of £3,000.” Agnew said she could then do the same next week — now in a new financial year — and in both cases avoid any tax penalties.
Adding all those methods together would allow the “aunt” to donate £38,500 anonymously, he said.
Then he raised the stakes even higher. “Your mother [sic] can make you a loan of £100,000 to buy a house ... and you would then become a donor to the party for £100,000 and your name would go up on the [commission] website.” Agnew said when the real donor died, she could state in her will that the loan was now a gift, thus writing it off. “You are seen to be the donor rather than her,” he said.
He added: “A loan can be for any amount if you are looking at a way of getting a substantial sum of money in your name. But remember, your name would then go on the website. And it would take quite an investigative journalist to try and work out [who you are].
“Nobody knows your particular status, you could have inherited money.” During the meeting Agnew also admitted that he was using taxpayers’ money to pay half the salary of an assistant — UKIP regional organiser Peter Reeve — whose amount of actual work for him was “virtually none”.
“I can tell you that Peter is paid partly by me out of my assistance allowance here partly by David [Campbell] Bannerman [another UKIP MEP]. He does very little work for us, virtually none. He is working for the party. And that’s strictly illegal.”
(Junius says: Peter should soon be in search of a new job. He could always go back to being a toilet attendant!)
Salaries paid via MEPs’ assistance allowance must not fund party work. The EU’s anti-fraud watchdog Olaf has been investigating some of Agnew’s fellow MEPs over a similar matter.
The day after the meeting, Agnew spoke on the phone to the reporter a number of times. He said he had talked to Pearson about the possibility of making the donation to UKIP via Global Britain.
“He did confirm that two anonymous donations can be made. Up to £7,500 can be made directly to the party and £25,000 to Global Britain,” he said, describing the latter method as a “loophole”. “If your aunt is willing to give us £32,500 [£25,000 plus £7,500] then it can be done anonymously.”
Another undercover reporter then spoke to Pearson, who said the money given to his unincorporated association would be passed “straight on” to UKIP: “I could pass it on the same day.”
He insisted: “The Electoral Commission knows that we will be doing all this, because someone else who is a major Conservative donor also wanted similar anonymity. The main thing is that it mustn’t be a straight filter.”
Asked if he could guarantee her name would not come out, he said: “Yes, we did it in the European elections [in 2009]. We passed on £80,000 from one person in effect ... and that caused no difficulty at all.” He said he would check with the Electoral Commission and “if there was any doubt I would honestly rather go without rather than risk it”.
When confronted, Pearson said he thought unincorporated associations were allowed to pass on donations of not more than £25,000 directly. He also said he would have given the donor’s name to the commission, although he said he was “not sure” if he had passed on the name of Patrick Barbour, a former Tory donor who he said was the person who donated £80,000 to UKIP through them last year. He claimed Barbour had given Global Britain £100,000 saying he would be “happy” if most of it went to UKIP.
He explained why he thought Barbour had wanted to stay anonymous: “He’d rather the Conservative party didn’t know he was giving that sort of money, you know,” he said.
He said: “It still is my understanding that I do not think that what I said yesterday to your [undercover] reporter is wrong. I’m sorry if it is, and I’ll apologise.” Pearson said he was regularly in touch with the commission over Global Britain and donations.
Agnew said: “It’s not cut and dried and the acts are complicated. The law is often very difficult to interpret.”
Bannerman denied Reeve did no work for him and Agnew. He said Reeve worked for UKIP only “in his spare time”. Reeve agreed.
Farage said: “I said to Stuart Agnew, I can’t take this any further, that she [the aunt] would have to come and meet face to face with Lord Pearson and talk about it.”
Barbour said of his donation last year: “I am pretty sure that I left it up to [Pearson’s] discretion what it was spent on.”
In a later call he said he had not given to Global Britain in order to conceal an anonymous donation to UKIP.
A spokesman for the commission said it would take “appropriate action” if breaches of the rules had occurred.
To see the original: LINK
Also see: LINK & LINK
Quite glorious.
ReplyDeleteYou celebrate alleged illegality by committing theft of copyright.
Well done you.
Might I suggest that you contact the Sunday Times to ask what you owe them?
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteTim Worstall - A few questions for you:
Were you a resident in the UK when your MEP application was filed?
You claimed to be on the Bath electoral roll which you could not be if you were a resident abroad for tax purposes.
Don't tell us you made a false declaration!
No doubt Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs would be interested in your answer.
"You claimed to be on the Bath electoral roll"
ReplyDeleteAs indeed I was. As you can check yourself by going to Bath Library and looking it up.
Sorry, but this dog of a story has already been investigated and been found to be quite, quite wrong.
I should also point out that I've never been "resident abroad for tax purposes" in the sense of being a tax exile. I have lived for many years in many different countries, this is true, as a result of my work. Russia for 7 years, the US for 5 or 6 and also in Portugal. But that's not the same as fleeing the country to avoid tax, is it?
So, back to the matter at hand. Have you paid the Sunday Times yet for your breach of copyright?
We are afraid that Lynnda Robson and Victor Webb don't agree with your version of events. Both made complaints about you to the NEC. Lynnda even went to court over it.
ReplyDeleteHere is what one of our sources said:
Tim Worstall - is he resident in the UK for tax purposes now and was he when his application was filed? He claims to be on the Bath electoral roll which he cannot be if he is resident abroad for tax purposes (which we know he is - he lives in Portugal and can only spend a limited amount of time in the UK). This should make him very worried, as if he claims he is on the electoral roll in Bath then he has either made a false declaration (criminal offence) or he should be paying UK tax. No doubt Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs would be interested in his answer.
End of quote.
They work for one of the UKIP MEPs. They don't think that you are telling the truth.
And don't worry about the Times. UKIP has bigger things to worry about at the moment!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI believe if Tiny Tim were to do some joined up thinking he would realise that the papers have no problem as they compare their circulations in the Millions on the stories lifted from Greg L-W. at:
http://CaterpillarsAndButterflies.blogspot.com
& Junius which gets mere hundreds and are both Not for Profit the press position is clearly shown to be what goes around comes around.
Only people as dishonest and corrupt as we know UKIP to be would even consider such a complaint - almost as foolish as the malicious comments and lies to the Press Complaints Commission from Mark Croucher and Roger Knapman for UKIP or the endless threats of legal action against the Times Group by the idiotic Nattrass and the criminal Tom Wise - mere bluster!
Unlike UKIP on a serial basis in breech of Data Protection Act and Officially censured for their offences by the Data Protection Officials and their endless leaking of data - neither my blog nor Junius are in breech of the Data Protection Act and as you will have noticed UKIP lost a case and were found guilty under the Data Protection Act.
Talking of ethics - let us see if UKIP have the basic morality to pay the £12,000 in expenses that they caused me to incur through the use of their agent Mark Croucher or will they try to hide behind the fact they are based in Brussels and 'believe' that they can use the EU to shelter from legal costs imposed by the British Courts!
That will be a very interesting reflection on UKIP's anti or pro EU stance won't it! Several papers are watching that but then again I do not charge for use of material on the blog nor am I paid for it - nor indeed am I paid for the numerous stories exposing the truth about UKIP over the years!
I appreciate UKIP's position is founded on the money they make but some of us act to liberate Britain from the EU unpaid seeking only the reward of freedom and self determination.
Not everyone is seeking a position and income exploiting the EUroSceptic cause some of us believe in it!
Regards,
Greg L-W.