This morning, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michael formally signed the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement; now only the confirmatory ratification by the European Parliament is needed to secure Britain’s orderly withdrawal in one week’s time.
London Labour MEP Seb Dance reacted by calling it “the saddest moment in my political career”, vowing to ensure his “very last vote shall be against Brexit.”
This is the saddest moment in my political career.
— Seb Dance MEP 🌹🇪🇺 (@SebDance) January 24, 2020
The WA will pass the EP of course b/c the member states want this agreement.
But I cannot and will not support something I know to be an historic mistake for the UK and the EU.
My very last vote shall be against Brexit. https://t.co/yINQXGSDER
Unfortunately for Seb, he clearly hasn’t realised his vote against the Withdrawal Agreement will in fact be a vote in favour of No Deal. Given that the UK Parliament has voted to leave and will not extend Article 50 any longer, a WTO exit would now be the outcome if the EU Parliament fails to ratify the agreement. Who knew Seb has been a sleeper agent this whole time?…
Publicity-loving Labour MEP Seb Dance last week stirred up a full-blown internal investigation into claims that pro-Brexit group Labour Leave made improper payments to UKIP during the EU referendum campaign. Such payments would be in breach of Labour’s rulebook. The party’s largest donor and Labour Leave founder millionaire John Mills was caught up in the story, with Dance calling for him to be thrown out of the party.
“I am satisfied that the money was transferred for the purposes of meeting shared costs for joint referendum events that had been paid for by UKIP. This has been reported as such by Labour Leave in your spending return to the Electoral Commission. In addition, the Commission advised you to report this payment as a “donation” for regulatory purposes. There is no indication that the money has, or will be, used for any other purposes.”
Moves are being made at the highest level of the Labour Party to throw out their largest indivdual donor, the millionaire John Mills, who has given them nearly £2 million. He formed the pro-Brexit group “Labour Leave” to persuade Labour Party members to vote for Brexit, which was backed financially by Tory-supporting Brexit donors and has even paid £18,500 to UKIP. Labour Leave explain:
During the EU referendum campaign, Labour Leave co-organised events with other groups in favour of Brexit. These were cross-party events and included representatives from Labour, the Conservatives and UKIP, as well as non-partisan organisations. We sought clarity from the Electoral Commission to ensure we were compliant, and they advised us to pay our share of the cost in the form of a donation. This one-off payment to UKIP was solely our share of this cost. The figure covered the cost of venue hire, transport, accommodation and security for the events.
Seb Dance, a Labour MEP facing imminent unemployment, has written to General Secretary Iain McNicol demanding that Mills be thrown out of the party. Guido thinks Labour would be crazy to drive their biggest donor out of the party. They’re not that crazy, are they?