Billionaire banker Soros in secret plot to thwart Brexit
Man who ‘broke the Bank of England’ funds Remainers’ campaign
BILLIONAIRE investor George Soros has funnelled hundreds of thousands of pounds to support Remain campaigners’ bids to undermine Brexit.
Mr Soros is known as the man who ‘broke the Bank of England’ after forcing the pound out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday in 1992.
He bet against the currency and made a reported £1.5billion.
Now he has handed £400,000 to Best for Britain, a group which has spread pro-Remain propaganda and is pushing for a second referendum to keep the country in the EU.
Its supporters have advocated keeping Britain in the customs union and single market.
The organisation also donated thousands to a group of MPs agitating in the Commons to undermine the Government’s strategy on Brexit.
It handed £21,000 to the allparty parliamentary group on EU relations, a hive of Remainer sentiment led by arch Europhiles, Labour’s Chuka Umunna and Tory MP Anna Soubry.
Best for Britain pays for administrative support for the group.
Last night the Daily Telegraph reported that a leaked Best for Britain strategy document proposed a nationwide campaign in the coming weeks to ‘wake the country up and assert that Brexit is not a done deal, that it’s not too late to stop Brexit’.
It also proposes a series of Momentum- style mass rallies and concerts with a ‘ heavy youth focus’.
The document suggests the campaign aims to ‘trigger a new referendum, or election’ which the group will use to block Brexit altogether. ‘We must prevail decisively so reassuring Europe that our return will be permanent,’ it states.
Mr Soros last year said Brexit was a ‘lose-lose proposition’.
Last night Lord MallochBrown, the chairman of Best for Britain, said the organisation had declared all financial contributions.
‘At Best for Britain we follow all rules and regulations governing financial contributions to the letter and have appropriate compliance and reporting systems,’ he said.
‘We welcome the support of our patrons … We have never hidden our agenda; we have been campaigning hard to win a meaningful vote on Brexit, which we did, and to keep all options on the table, including staying in the European Union.’
He added: ‘We work with campaigners, businesses, unions, politicians and community groups to make sure everyone has a strong campaigning voice. George Soros’s foundations have along with a number of other major donors also made significant contributions to our work … through his foundations he has contributed £400,000.
‘We are proud of the campaign we have embarked on. We think the British people deserve a final say on the Brexit deal and believe the country has been led down a dangerous false turn.’
Lord Malloch-Brown claimed the campaign was a ‘democratic and patriotic effort to recover our future’.
‘Far from subverting democracy, we believe we speak for a democratic majority in a country now facing up to the consequences of a Brexit negotiation that has been captured by a handful of hardliners,’ he said.
Earlier this year Mr Soros
‘Wake the country up’ ‘Trigger a new referendum’
claimed Britain was approaching a tipping point that would see the economy slow to such an extent that Brexit might even be reversed. He argued Brexit would take years and cause ‘immense damage’.
‘The moment of truth is fast approaching,’ he wrote. ‘The fact is that Brexit is a lose-lose proposition, harmful both to Britain and the European Union. It cannot be undone, but people can change their minds.
‘Households will realise their living standards are falling and they will have to adjust their spending habits … they will also realize they have become overindebted and they will have to pay back their debts.’