Nigel Farage has reportedly launched a Brexit lobbying group which can spend unlimited amounts of money pushing pro-Brexit messages while keeping the names of its donors secret.
“Pushing pro-Brexit messages”, of course, also means furthering Farage’s personal career.
World4Brexit is registered in Michigan USA for tax purposes and is registered as a ‘501(c)(4)’ group - a not-for-profit group which can accept donations of up to $5,000 and keep the names of donors secret.
Farage is on record as stating that all money raised by the group would be “above the board and legal”.
Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon, who heads Brussels-based far-right organisation The Movement, is expected to give "informal advice" to the campaign group. Interestingly, Farage’s former assistant in the European Parliament, and who was named in the British media as his live-in mistress, one Laure Ferrari, is identified in legal documents obtained by EU Today as one of two nominees for the role of Secretary-General of The Movement.
Previously, she was appointed by Farage to the role of executive director of the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe (IDDE), an entity set up in the shadow of of the ADDE.
Following an investigation into IDDE, the UK Electoral Commission also opened an investigation into whether UKIP accepted "impermissible donations" from the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), a pan-European political party established in 2014, which included members from UKIP, as well as the controversial Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), one The Sweden Democrats, whose members, in the early days of the party's existence, openly adopted Nazi regalia.
According to the Guardian, UKIP stood to receive around £1million per year from ADDE and £580,000 from IDDE.
The European Parliament advised the commission that "it has formally concluded that both ADDE and IDDE used EU grant funding for the benefit of UKIP in breach of its rules and therefore, these expenses were declared as non-eligible for the financing”.
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Farage’s new Brexit Party also quickly attracted from the Electoral Commission over the source of its income, stating that “the fundraising structure the [Brexit] Party have adopted, coupled with insufficient procedures, leaves it open to a high and ongoing risk of receiving and accepting impermissible donations, and being unable to maintain accurate records of transactions.”
Of course, it it appears to have been set up that way. Bob Posner, chief executive of the Electoral Commission, speaking at a hearing of the UK Parliament’s sub-committee on disinformation, told MPs that the party was open to a “high risk” of fraudulent donations via Paypal.
MPs were told that the Brexit party had not been collecting data concerning Paypal donations “systematically” and noted that its funding structure was based around attracting money from small donations, which “does have risks attached to it”.
In June, the Commission asked the Party to check £2.5m it has received in donations to ensure it has come from legitimate sources. The Commission will oversee these checks, it is reported.
Many will be asking, “is World4Brexit another of Farage’s money making schemes?”
This will also of course raise yet again questions about the possibility of Russian funding that have dogged Farage in recent years. His relationship with Bannon has attracted attracting speculation: The Movement, of which Farage has spoken positively, comprises mainly of far-right populist parties that have either sought, or received, Moscow geld.
Despite having launched only in July of this year- the first posting was on the 12th - World4Brexit’s Twitter account, which appears to be a sort of online photo album for Farage himself, as of the morning of the 29th shows an impressive 4,687 followers. However, many of the accounts of these followers appear to be fake - either paid for followers or part of a “follow me” scheme. Its all about appearances….
This article originally appeared on www.eutoday.net
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