Soros pledges another £100,000 to anti-brexit battle

GEORGE SOROS, the billionaire financier, has pledged another £100,000 to “accelerate” his anti-brexit campaign after he said that engineering a “mere reversal” of the EU referendum result was not enough.

Mr Soros and his OSF Foundation will say today that they will match donations of up to £100 to the Remainsupporting Best for Britain campaign up to a value of £100,000. Best for Britain has urged people to come forward to help the group create a Fight Brexit Fund. By last night, £45,000 had been pledged in donations of less than £100.

Mr Soros said: “I am happy to take the fight to those who have tried to use a smear campaign not arguments to prop up their failing case.”

The cash is on top of his decision to hand £400,000 to the Best for Britain campaign. Mr Soros came under fire last week after The Daily Telegraph revealed he was backing Best for Britain. He is one of three senior figures linked to the group who plan to launch a nationwide advertising campaign this month, hoping it will lead to a second referendum to keep Britain in the EU.

The campaign is trying to recruit major Tory donors in an attempt to undermine Theresa May.

In a Mail on Sunday interview before the donation was announced, Mr Soros pledged to “accelerate” his campaign to stop Brexit within six months and warned that the EU would not take “seriously” a narrow win to stay in a second referendum.

He said: “A mere reversal of the 5248 majority for Brexit is not enough. The majority for staying would have to be significantly larger to convince Europe that Britain’s attitude towards Europe has fundamentally changed.”

Meanwhile, Philip Hammond has been sidelined from a series of major “road to Brexit” interventions by ministers over the next fortnight as Mrs May seeks to agree a cross-cabinet vision for Brexit. She and Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox – the three leading Cabinet Brexiteers – will give keynote speeches on the withdrawal stance over the next three weeks, but the Chancellor will not take part.

The decision to exclude Mr Hammond forced David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, to deny “any kind of plot to gag a particular faction of ministers”.