Britain’s serious crime agency has started an investigation into Brexit backer Arron Banks over the source of 8 million pounds ($10.4 million) in loans to groups including Leave.EU which campaigned to leave the European Union. Banks has said the investigation is part of an attempt to undermine Brexit. He has repeatedly insisted that the money came from him and that no Russian funding was involved. But if criminal offences or foreign funding are proven, that could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the whole Brexit vote. The groups that received the loans ran emotive publicity campaigns to persuade people to vote to leave the EU – and the final result was close. In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million voters, or 51.9 percent, backed Brexit while 16.1 million, or 48.1 percent, backed staying in the bloc. The focus is 8 million pounds in loans provided to Leave.EU and Better for the Country Limited (BFTC), which Banks controls and which ran Leave.EU’s campaign.
Britain’s Electoral Commission asked the UK National Crime Agency to investigate Banks after saying it suspected the insurance entrepreneur was “not the true source” of the loans.
It also said it had grounds to suspect that the loan arrangements had involved Banks’ Rock Holding Limited, which was incorporated in the Isle of Man, a self-governing British crown dependency that is not part of the United Kingdom.
British law mostly bans companies from outside UK from making such political donations.
Full Article: The 8 million pound hole in Brexit: smoking gun or damp squib? | Reuters.