Bad boy of Brexit who told preening Remoan MPs to go take a running jump
In a gloriously pugnacious interview, Arron Banks tells JANE FRYER there’s only one thing that scares him – his firecracker Russian wife
see the elephant in the room,’ he says. ‘Mass immigration, the pressure on the NHS, schools, everything. In many ways it’s a cultural war, not a political war.
‘Of course I respect some MPs, but as a breed many have done little or nothing.’ He talks of a ‘people’s movement’, and of giving ‘voice to the forgotten millions of English people’.
But sitting in his mini-stately home, and with an estimated fortune somewhere between £100million and £250million (‘The actual amount is none of anyone’s business’), he doesn’t exactly feel a man of the people. ‘Ha ha! No! But I am from a middle-class family’ — he was raised by his mother in Basingstoke while his father managed sugar plantations in Africa — ‘and I know the fear of starting your own business with a desk and two telephones and no money.’
And no qualifications. He was kicked out of school before his A-levels, so university was out.
Instead, he started selling vacuum cleaners and houses before moving to an entry-level job at insurance firm Lloyd’s of London; from there to Norwich Union. He later co-founded insurance company Brightside, which was sold five years ago for £130million, and more recently GoSkippy, which is now worth an estimated £100million. Much of his fortune, though, is held offshore in Belize, the Isle of Man, the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar, making it difficult to value.
His political beliefs go ‘right back to Maastricht’, the treaty that set Europe on the road to ever-closer political integration. As a ‘spotty teenager’ he was a member of the Conservative Party and, aged 19, was the youngest ever Tory party candidate when he ran for Basingstoke Council — ‘I got a letter from Mrs T congratulating me!’
He took it seriously, even bought a golden Labrador called Folly to help him win the housewives over.
‘It really helped. I didn’t win, but it was close. Nigel Farage could learn a bit from that. I’m not sure he’s that popular with women. Maybe if he got a dog . . .’
He lights up when he talks about Farage, and clearly adores him. They overlapped back in the City but never formally met. Now they go drinking together. ‘I think I can hold my drink better than Nigel, though we both stay pretty coherent right to the death and are happy drunks.’ His foray in Basingstoke was not his only flirtation with front-line politics. Once, after donating ‘a lot of money’ to the Tories in Chipping Sodbury, he was invited to be the candidate for South Gloucestershire in the 2010 general election.
BUT again his ambitions were short-lived. Halfway through hosting a dinner with all the party’s local bigwigs, he says Katya, whom he married in 2001, got up, said: “I’ve f***ing well had enough of this — if this is what it means for you to be an MP, then no way”, and walked out.’
‘And that was my parliamentary career up in smoke,’ he says.
If Arron is a punchy, thickskinned man, who loves a scrap, adores being provocative on Twitter and will never walk away from a fight, Katya trumps him ten times over. She has been involved in endless run-ins, including a fist fight at a football match between Arsenal and CSKA Moscow when she cheered loudly for the Russians from the Arsenal corporate box. The Arsenal supporters started baiting her — and then she really lost it, climbing down out of the box to have it out with them before being dragged off by security to calm down. There was an incident in New York’s Central Park where she was chased off the ice rink by a furious Father Christmas for skating too fast, backwards, through the crowds. I ask Arron if he’s afraid of her. ‘Only when she steals my passport,’ he says. ‘And my King Charles I gold coin worth £350,000 that is now mysteriously in her safe, not mine any more . . .
‘But we have fun. She’s a character. One glass of wine and she’s a gibbering goblin: she’ll dance on the table and burst into song and everyone wants her to come to dinner because you never know what’s going to happen next.’
The same could be said of him. He’s lively company and surprisingly charming. Nigel Farage, he says, has been a huge support during the past two years, when the abuse and brickbats stretched far beyond his regular Twitter spats. He says his computer’s been hacked. There have been people hiding in the bushes outside his office, women sent to try to entrap him and death threats from angry Remainers.
‘Plenty of them and quite specific — “I’llkill you and stab you if I see you in the street” — which can be worrying, though Katya would probably see them off with a karate kick.’
He also says he’s been the subject of fake news allegations himself. ‘I’ve been accused of owning an ostrich farm with links to the Italian Mafia, and being a Viagra salesman. And of being a “tool of the Kremlin”!
‘That made me cross. It made me look daft and I do a good enough job of that already.’
But he’s not had his fill of politics. ‘I was thinking about Mayor of London,’ he says. ‘It’s more of an American-style race — you don’t have to be endorsed by anyone, you just need to have a personality. ‘And I’ve got one of those. I think it could be interesting. Yes, I might just give it a go.’