The actual Electoral Commission statement issued yesterday on Aaron Banks is HERE. Any atheists who doubted the existence of God might now start to believe in Him. If Banks can be charged, convicted and imprisoned before March 29th 2019 it would surely go a long way to proving beyond doubt the existence of some omnipotent being looking down on us and slowly but surely hand cranking the wheels of justice.
"From the evidence we gathered, we have reasonable grounds to suspect that a number of offences may have been committed.
"These relate to the financial transactions which led to the £8m being paid into BFTC’s bank account. Mr Banks and Ms Bilney (and through them BFTC and Leave.EU) gave us unsatisfactory explanations about these transactions, and we have reasonable grounds to suspect that they knowingly concealed and sought to conceal the true circumstances.
"We also have reasonable grounds to suspect that a non-qualifying or impermissible person or body, Rock Holdings (incorporated in the Isle of Man), was a party to the relevant transactions".
Banks is the largest ever donor to a political cause in British history. I've asked myself why a wealthy but obscure nobody, a complete oik, should donate £8 million to try and get us out of the EU? What unspeakable evil did EU membership mean for the owner of a small down-market insurance company? There are a lot of wealthy men who probably had more reason to support Brexit but wouldn't commit anything like that sort of money on what at the time was nothing more than a gamble.
And I note most if not all of the money was described as loans of various sizes. Did he ever get repaid? Is it likely he will ever be repaid?
Even The Daily Mail has a critical article on Banks (HERE) which claims the £8 million represents half his lifetime earnings. There is a lot of scepticism about the source of the money and if it really was his. As the article says at the end £8 million would be peanuts for Russia to weaken its main rival.
There is a creeping realisation that Brexit will only be damaging to the interests of this country in both the short and long term. It will damage our friends too. The only winners are our enemies and especially Russia who had the motive and the means. Those advocating Brexit were either fifth columnists or useful idiots. I hope Banks is exposed as one or the other.
What I find strange is the argument of the advocates of leaving the EU that both sides of the campaign overspent. Dr Richard North, a dedicated leaver who is behind the EUreferendum blog, is highly critical of the government's shambolic handling and daily warns of the catastrophic impact of the no deal outcome that he expects. Yet he argues that we must leave, there can be no second referendum and the lies and now the possible criminal activities of Banks cannot be allowed to overturn the 2016 result.
Many of them point to the £9 million spent by the government on sending out a leaflet to all UK households. It is a model of clarity and balance setting out the government's position in dry and quite mild facts. It was far from propaganda and there were no lies in it. Judge for yourself HERE.
As many remainers point out, if the referendum result is allowed to stand, knowing what we know and what may yet come out, it will give carte blanche to future campaigns to do whatever it takes to get the results they want.
Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian journalist who is perhaps more responsible than anyone for getting Banks investigated, was on Radio 4 this morning and says if we are prepared to leave the EU on the basis of a corrupted vote, so be it.
But what will future generations think of us if we did that?
