Triumphant: But what’s the truth about Gina’s law degree?
The smile on Gina Miller’s face said it all yesterday. Posing on the steps of the Supreme Court, an expensive black shearling coat to ward off the morning chill and with large sapphire and diamond earrings glinting in each lobe, the former model turned businesswoman and self-proclaimed philanthropist was in a triumphant mood.
Though her statement to journalists was measured — that bringing her landmark legal case was about ‘the legal process, not the politics’ — there was no doubting she saw this as a political victory over Brexiteers.
Miller, the subject of countless gushing profiles in newspapers and magazines sympathetic to her cause, has carefully spun her image of a woman — a wife and mother of three as well as a City Superwoman regularly photographed in exquisitely tailored outfits — who fears a ‘treacherous future’ outside europe.
And because of her principled stand she has, she’s revealed, been the victim of vile online abuse and hideous sexual and racist threats.
her critics, though, see a shameless publicity seeker, a woman who is using her wealthy (third) husband Alan Miller’s very deep pockets — despite running a loss-making fund management business together — to defy the wishes of the majority of the British people.
Some also question her track record in the City, where observers suggest she is determined to be seen as the acceptable face of capitalism: a stellar career as a fund manager and a philanthropist to boot.
So, who is Gina Miller, what exactly is driving her and what is the truth of her claims? Born into a land- owning family in Guyana, the daughter of the attorney general, Miller, now 51, says she first took an interest in challenging the Brexit process after discussing with a lawyer her belief that the Prime Minister was not allowed under constitutional law to remove citizens’ rights without parliamentary consent.
It was, perhaps, not an unexpected position for someone with a law degree as had been claimed on two company websites and an online brochure.
On the website of her firm SCM50, the following statement appeared: ‘Gina has three degrees in marketing, human resource management and law.’ A similar statement appeared on her ‘Moneyshe’ website and in an online brochure for SCM Direct.
In truth, Gina Miller does not have a law degree. She did study for one at the University of east London, but left before sitting her final exams. (She does have the two other degrees.)
When asked about the discrepancy, her lawyers told the Mail she was unaware of the false claim prominently displayed on the website and said the responsibility for the mistake lay with a freelance copywriter.
Nevertheless, that reference to a law degree is included in some of the flattering profiles compiled with her co-operation, including one in the anti-Brexit Financial Times.
Separately, controversy has surrounded the business activities of her second husband, the maverick entrepreneur Jon Maguire. During their time together, he and Miller set up a marketing company and she was a codirector with him of another business, Capital Communications Consultancy.
Maguire was investigated by City regulators in 2011 — after he had separated from Miller — over one of the most notorious City investment scandals of recent years when investors complained they had been misleadingly sold high-risk investments. he was exonerated, but two fund managers were heavily fined.
No evidence was found against Maguire, and he has always maintained he was unfairly treated by the authorities. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme paid more
‘It seems that self-promotion trumps accuracy’