Farage ally faces criminal probe over Brexit campaign spending

THE main financial backer behind the Brexit campaign in 2016 is under criminal investigation over suspected illegal campaign funding during the country’s referendum.

The UK’s Electoral Commission said wealthy businessman Arron Banks, his group Leave.EU ‘and other associated companies and individuals’ are under investigation by the UK’s National Crime Agency. The inquiry concerns £8million (€9million) reportedly loaned by Mr Banks and his companies to a pro-Brexit group, Better for the Country.

Mr Banks, a close ally of former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage and an enthusiastic UK supporter of President Donald Trump, has accused pro-EU politicians and campaigners of ‘trying to discredit the Brexit campaign’. ‘I’d like to think I’m an evil genius with a white cat that kind of controls the whole of Western democracy, but clearly that’s nonsense,’ Mr Banks told a committee of lawmakers in June.

The commission said it suspects Mr Banks ‘was not the true source’ of the money and concealed its real origins.

‘The financial transactions we have investigated include companies incorporated in Gibraltar and the Isle of Man,’ said Bob Posner, the electoral watchdog’s director of political finance. ‘Our investigation has unveiled evidence that suggests criminal offences have been committed which fall beyond the remit of the commission,’ he added. British electoral campaigns are barred from taking money from overseasbased individuals or businesses.

Mr Banks, a brash multi-millionaire insurance executive, said that he was confident a ‘full and frank investigation’ would clear him.

Ever since Britain voted by 52 to 48% to leave the EU in 2016, Remainers have raised questions about the source of funding for the Leave campaign, the influence of Russian meddling and the role of social-media advertising using data harvested from Facebook users by the firm Cambridge Analytica.