Despite having a swanky Central London HQ staffed with around 90 people, running a leafleting campaign across the country and designing a flashy new website instructing voters which parties to vote for in the EU elections, People’s Vote have only declared a single donation to the Electoral Commission – from the 2017 General Election – and still under their old name of Open Britain. Their offshore donations from Vladimir Putin aren’t likely to appear any time soon…

That single donation is for a healthy £82,822.45, although how they’re using it to fund 90 people’s salaries is a mystery. What’s also a mystery is why the donation was given at all, it’s all come from a small Glasgow-based company, Ferring Controlled Therapeutics Ltd, with no connection to politics – they are a specialist company manufacturing pharmaceuticals for natal care. They don’t even have their own website, their total profits after tax for 2018 were just £384,065…

What they do have is a two billion-euro parent company, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, founded in Sweden, now headquartered in Switzerland and active in 110 countries around the world. The senior management is heavily EU-dominated. Ferring even counts Princess Alexandra of Denmark, Countess of Fredriksborg, as one of its Directors….

It is simply implausible that their tiny UK subsidiary made a political donation equivalent to over 20% of their annual profits without the involvement of the EU/Swiss parent company. Donations from foreign companies are specifically not permitted under UK electoral law. Someone looks to have been laundering the money through this small UK company. Guido can’t wait for Campbell and Cadwalladr to kick up a fuss about this one…

UPDATE: It turns out that £82,822.45 is remarkably close to €100,000 at April 2017 exchange rates. Who’d have thought…