The National Crime Agency has concluded that Arron Banks and Leave.EU did not commit a criminal offence after the Electoral Commission referred allegations to them.
The NCA has full access to bank transactions and found nothing illegal or untoward. Carole Cadwallader’s absurd conspiracy theories have once again been found to have zero credibility – she should make a settlement offer this afternoon…
The conclusion reads as follows:
The NCA investigation has concluded that:
- Mr Banks took a loan from Rock Holdings Ltd, a company of which he is the ultimate beneficial owner. He was legally entitled to do so.
- Mr Banks was legally entitled, in his capacity as an individual, to release these funds to Better for the Country Ltd, by instructing another of his companies, Rock Services Ltd, to make the transactions on his behalf.
- Rock Holdings Ltd was not involved in these transactions in a manner which contravened PPERA.
The NCA has found no evidence that any criminal offences have been committed under PPERA or company law by any of the individuals or organisations referred to it by the Electoral Commission. It will therefore take no further action against Mr Banks, Ms Bilney, Better for the Country Ltd or Leave.EU in respect of this specific matter.
Despite successive recent defeats, the Electoral Commission have refused to back down, saying, “We urge the UK’s governments to act on those recommendations to support voter confidence”, today’s Electoral Commission defeat is another example of how it simply isn’t fit for purpose…
Carole Cadwalladr has been forced to retract her “Brexit Disaster Capitalism” conspiracy tweet, following her obvious errors being pointed out by Guido and the FT.
Carole seems so embarrassed that she even took the step of embarrassingly urging her pals at fake news merchants ‘Byline Times’, to issue a correction too. Classic Cadwalladr with yet another correction…
In the wilder corners of Twitter, the remainiacs have a meta-conspiracy theory they call “Brexit Disaster Capitalism”, it has a number of components and is based on some far-fetched premises;
- Brexit will be a disaster and lead to economic collapse.
- Prominent rich Brexiteers know this, they intend to profit from it by selling short stocks high to buy back low after the disaster.
- City tycoons and hedge fund managers financed the Brexit campaign to bring about the collapse from which they will profit massively whilst the rest of us suffer.
The fact that Jacob Rees-Mogg, for example, has an interest in a fund management firm is cited as proof. The latest incarnation and attempt to shore up the theory is based on the publicly-disclosed short interests of various fund managers who have given money to the Tories, Vote Leave or Boris Johnson’s campaigns. Carole Cadwalladr tweeted last night that they have aggregate short positions of some £4,563,350,000. Four and a half billion quid of shorts by Brexit-backing fund managers sounds like a huge amount. Except it isn’t in relative terms.
The UK stock market is capitalised at over £4 trillion, so that aggregate short position is equivalent to something like a tenth of 1% of the market. Nothing unusual. Long/short funds usually trade stock pairs, so the funds most likely won’t even be that short in net terms because a fund goes short one stock and hedges the position long another stock (hence the term “hedge* fund”). The profit (or loss) is from the difference in the stocks’ relative performances.
More obviously, these funds are overall net long the market, if these rapacious plutocrats were betting on disaster, why would they be positioned to profit massively when the broad stock market went up and lose when it went down? Publicly available data, for example, shows that the prominent Brexiteer donor Paul Marshall’s firm has £1.3 billion in short positions on the UK stock market. His firm manages some £30 billion of assets. Which suggests he is in reality geared to profit far more from rising than falling stock markets.
Incidentally, if the fund managers had been short since referendum night they would have lost their fortunes, given the FTSE is up over a 1000 points since the referendum. The whole “Brexit Disaster Capitalism” conspiracy theory does not make sense even if you accept the premise that Brexit will be a disaster. The hedge fund managers are long the market in the expectation stocks will continue to rise…
*The hedge might also be against derivatives or the relevant market index. To go short without hedge is to be nakedly short. A brave trade.
Hapless Brexit ‘whistleblower’ Shahmir Sanni has been having a hard time getting anyone to listen to him for the last few months years outside of the tinfoil Cadwalladr-Jukes-Byline Twittersphere. After the BBC declined to run his comments about Dominic Cummings a couple of weeks ago, he’s now found a new outlet to vent on. Russia Today.
RT is the repeatedly sanctioned English-language propaganda channel of the person Carole believes is behind the whole of Brexit, Vladimir Putin. Carole has repeatedly pointed the finger of blame at RT itself, Guido wonders what she’ll have to say about it now her pet whistleblower is appearing on it. Her spider diagram is going to need to turn 4-dimensional to explain all of this…
Zoolander is appearing on the channel’s ‘Going Underground’ show at 11.30am to tell his story to Putin’s faithful, now that no-one else is paying him any attention. Funny how he doesn’t seem so concerned about Russia “infiltrating our democracy” now…
Just four days ago the confused Remain campaigner tweeted that he “will never support a Russian state-funded broadcaster”. What changed?
Taking money from the Kremlin to appear on Putin’s propaganda outlet is a funny way to get Russia to “leave me alone”. To coin a phrase, “the hypocrisy is unbelievable”. When the only place still taking your desperate attention seeking seriously is Putin’s state propaganda channel it’s probably time to find a new hobby…
UPDATE: The presenter has now tweeted that Shahmir wasn’t paid for his interview. Shilling for free! Vlad will be delighted…
Carole Cadwalladr’s beleaguered limited company is now facing compulsory strike off within two months. Unless cause is shown to the contrary within two months Hyggelig Limited will be struck off the register and the company will be dissolved. The last accounts filed showed the company owes a lot of cash in tax too. Almost as chaotic as Carole’s continuously corrected ‘journalism’…
A bean counting co-conspirator has been in touch with Guido to say this is a well known tactic for directors in debt to allow Companies House to strike off their businesses and avoid paying taxes that are legally due to HMRC. It’s referred to in the trade as ‘liquidation through the back door’ as it avoids any formal investigation into the conduct of the Directors.
Further inspection of the last set of accounts filed for Hyggelig Limited these state £19,999 of corporation tax was owed to HMRC as at 31 March 2017. Given that the corporation tax liability for the 31 March 2017 year end was only £8,563 this would suggest £11,436 was still due for the previous years too and should have been paid by 1 January 2017. Guido has no way of knowing she has paid her corporate tax bill because Carole has failed to file her accounts. Carole’s got more in common with Facebook than she admits…
*Guido has left multiple messages for Carole to discuss the situation, no explanation has been proffered.
Last night by a strange twist of fate Carole Cadwalladr and Darren Grimes were stuck on the same Peterbororugh train. At 7.30 pm she tweeted this, Guido was shocked, was the Electoral Commission really this vindictive? Confused, Guido went to the Electoral Commission website to read the statement. It looked like an old statement with an update to report that Darren had been cleared in Court. To be certain Guido called the Electoral Commission…
By now the BBC had put out Carole’s version of events as a breaking news alert, Reuters had taken a similar line. The reality was as above.
Guido’s tweet was greeted with accusations of “fake news” by Carole’s fans who were congratulating her, reveling in what would now happen to Darren in jail. MPs like Layla Moran were using it to make political points. Even when told bluntly she had read the statement wrong she prevaricated.
You have screwed up again. You should go down the train and find Darren and apologise to him personally. Have the good grace to admit you misread the press release at the very least. I personally think Darren should get a restraining order against you.
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) July 25, 2019
You couldn’t make this up. At this point surely @carolecadwalla is a liability for the failing @guardian. Proper amateur hour.
— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) July 25, 2019
The latest correction and apology. https://t.co/FDI8s96cvg
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) July 25, 2019
These people are deranged with their obsession to demonise Brexit supporters…
