Brexit and Russia’s Role

[Ed P]

 

Aaron Banks the main funder of the Leave.EU campaign has lost his libel suit in which by her finding against him, a Judge in essence deemed that it had been said that he’d had “a secret relationship with the Russian government in relation to acceptance of foreign funding of electoral campaigns in breach of the law”

In her ruling, Mrs Justice Steyn said: ‘Based on her investigation, Ms Cadwalladr had reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Banks had been offered ‘sweetheart’ deals by the Russian government in the period running up to the EU referendum, although she had seen no evidence he had entered into any such deals; and Mr Banks’s financial affairs, and the source of his ability to make the biggest political donations in UK history, were opaque.

The Electoral Commission had also announced, following a one-year investigation, that it had reasonable grounds to suspect that Mr Banks was not the true source of the £8 million loans/donations, but rather the source was a non-qualifying company, Rock Holdings, which is based in an offshore, non-transparent, jurisdiction.  (Election funds must come from UK residents and it is a breach of the law to use off-shore funds)

Construe those Court and Electoral Commission  decisions how you like, but in retrospect Russia’s desire to weaken the EU and Western Europe was obvious.

This could all turn out to be yet another nail in BoJo’s reputation as he has personally intervened to delay publication of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report. He continues to refuse its demand for an inquiry. Why he should do this while continuing to publicly support Ukraine beggars belief!  What skeletons are yet to come out of the cupboard?

[Dave Rice]

You assume he has ethics and a conscience.

[Richard]

You are a pessimistic lot, remember the time when justice was based on evidence? So let us look at some. The EU has been hopeless against the Madcap Tzar Excrement-tin. They cannot do anything because Hungary is led by the madcap’s puppet poodle. Germany is addicted to buying the Madcap’s gas, as is France. Both are happy to shovel large amounts of money into Madcap’s treasury, while trying to make any action taken by the EU as useless and ineffective as possible. A good chunk of France’s so-called elite, cannot see what is wrong with Madcap, since they make so much money out of trading with him. Much the same goes for Germany where former leaders try to block action, an effort that is hardly required, since it has been next to useless already.

As for the case, you were so pleased about. While judges continue to try to make, bend, or in many cases break, what was understood by laws, why is there any need for evidence? If you really think that Russia wanted the break-up of the toothless EU, how much good has our leaving done to their malign cause? Viewed from the evidence to date, none at all. Only if you discount hard evidence does the EU look like anything more than a powderpuff. The EU in the shape of Germany, France and Hungary continue to pay Russia’s bills and while Poland has taken large numbers of displaced persons, the UK has been one of the largest providers of military aid. Something that Germany delays, and continues to prevaricate about.

[Ed P]

Richard, I suspect that your thread has gone astray somewhere. My original post was not about the problems Austria, Hungary and to some extent Italy cause in the EU’s posture towards Russia, rather it was about a ‘SLAPP – type’ court case brought by Mr Banks against Ms Cadwalladr, which Mr Banks lost.  The burden of proof in such cases is much lower than that for criminal cases, but the Judge still has to give a judgement based on their view of all available evidence. The Judge in her summing up pulls together what appears to me to be a very reasoned rationale for her judgement.

I agree with your point that really hard evidence is lacking, but unfortunately that will always be the case when transactions are conducted through the veil of third-party off-shore entities. We would need a whistle-blower to release the sort of data that leaked in the Pandora Papers to be certain whether or not there are any hard facts supporting the view of either the Judge  or the Electoral Commission. Alternately we would need to see the Security Committee’s Russia report to have a better view of whether or not Russia has interfered in British politics. Until that day, I will continue to base my opinions on the old adages of: ‘follow the money, and/or who stands to gain and what did it cost them?

[Ed P]

I could not complete my comments, but:

I also agree with your point about Russia gaining little from their actions. In fact irrespective of the EU, Russia has managed to unite NATO members, and has not achieved a compliant buffer state on its borders. In short a political and military disaster. It has however thrown Russia into China’s arms, and from a US standpoint it would now be best to now let a weakened Putin gain a little face rather than deepening and strengthening those ties.

[Author]

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