What connects Brexit, the DUP, dark money and a Saudi prince?

[Denzil_DC]

If Northern Ireland were a normal democracy, the election campaign would be dominated by a single question: how did the Democratic Unionist Party end up advancing the cause of a united Ireland through its support for Brexit? More specifically: what role did dark money play in that extraordinary decision? This story has all the makings of a John le Carré thriller but democracy on this island needs facts, not fiction.

To recap briefly: two days before the Brexit referendum last June, the Metro freesheet in London and other British cities came wrapped in a four-page glossy propaganda supplement urging readers to vote Leave. Bizarrely, it was paid for by the DUP, even though Metro does not circulate in Northern Ireland. At the time, the DUP refused to say what the ads cost or where the money came from.

We’ve since learned that the Metro wraparound cost a staggering £282,000 (€330,000) – surely the biggest single campaign expense in the history of Irish politics. For context, the DUP had spent about £90,000 (€106,000) on its entire campaign for the previous month’s assembly elections. But this was not all: the DUP eventually admitted that this spending came from a much larger donation of £425,622 (€530,000) from a mysterious organisation, the Constitutional Research Council.

Mystery

The mystery is not why someone seeking to influence the Brexit vote would want to do so through the DUP. Disgracefully, Northern Ireland is exempt from the UK’s requirements for the sources of large donations to be declared. The mystery, rather, is who were the ultimate sources of this money and why was it so important to keep their identities secret.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-connects-brexit-the-dup-dark-money-and-a-saudi-prince-1.3083586

{X-Posted in Editorials & Other Articles}

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. More on Richard Cook and the loophole he's using

"Pushed on whether there had been any applications relating to Scotland more broadly, he said: “There have been no directly Scottish applications.”
...
"Quizzed on how many Scots had made financial contributions, he stated: “Paul, I shouldn’t have said yes there, so I am not going to go into any more.”

On how much money had been donated to the CRC since 2014, he said: “I’m not going to get into that.”

Asked if it was over £1m, he replied: “Not going to get into that.”"

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15299375.Richard_Cook__chair_of_the_shadowy_Constitutional_Research_Council_talks_to_the_Sunday_Herald/

I wouldn't trust this guy a millimetre. This is classic American hidden funding of political campaigns. He claims the CRC is regulated by the Electoral Commission, but:

"As the Constitutional Research Council appears to have no traceable legal form – we do not even know its members – it is likely an “unincorporated association” in electoral law. Speaking to openDemocracy today, an Electoral Commission representative said “unincorporated Associations can’t act as the agent for an impermissible donation” and “the first onus is on the recipient (to ensure that a donation is permissible). If they can’t confirm permissibility then they need to return the donation”. But in Northern Ireland, uniquely, donations to and from unincorporated associations are kept secret."
...
"Under the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, Unincorporated Associations which donate more than £25,000 to a political party must register with the Electoral Commission and notify it of every donation of more than £7,500 that they in turn have been given.

"This legislation was introduced after the 2006 Midlands Industrial Council row, in which unincorporated associations were accused of being used to funnel anonymous money into the Conservative party.

"However, while these donations to unincorporated donations are required to be published in the rest of the UK, the Electoral Commission keeps them secret if the ultimate beneficiaries of this money are parties in Northern Ireland, even if the original donor, the Unincorporated Association, and the campaign materials ultimately paid for with the money are all based outside Northern Ireland. In other words, the Constitutional Research Council seem to be hiding behind the same Northern Irish donor secrecy laws that the DUP were hiding behind until Friday."


https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/adam-ramsay-peter-geoghegan/electoral-commission-contradict-dup-on-brexit-donor-transparency

So this loophole allows anonymous donations to anywhere in the UK if it's via Northern Ireland. The Electoral Commission ought to have records of who made the donation to the front company, but they're not made public, and we've no idea if the commission follows up to check where it really came from. If it were public, journalists or other political parties could check.

[Denzil_DC]

2. And more background on Cook

I've mentioned the impact of Unionism in Scotland a great deal in the past. May's confidence and supply arrangement (and reported failed attempt at full coalition) with the DUP puts Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson in an awkward position, but she's been cynically courting Unionist votes since she took office:

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Meet the Scottish Tory behind the £425,000 DUP Brexit donation

A modest, semi-detached house in Clarkston on Glasgow’s southside seems an unlikely source for a secretive, £425,000 donation to the Democratic Unionist Party’s Brexit campaign. But the occupant – Richard Cook – is the only person publicly connected with the Constitutional Research Council, a shadowy pro-union group that funnelled dark money to the DUP ahead of June’s EU referendum.

And Richard Cook is not just connected to Northern Irish unionism – he has links that go to the heart of the Scottish Conservative Party, the Saudi intelligence service and a notorious Indian gun running scandal.

Mr Cook is a former vice chairman of the Scottish Conservative party and Tory election candidate (for which he was fast-tracked through the selection, according to reports on ConservativeHome). He has campaigned with Ruth Davidson and David Cameron, and his Facebook friends list is a roll-call of prominent Scottish Tories.

Scottish politicians are now calling for the Scottish Tory leader to clarify her relationship with Cook, who in the 2010 general election lost out to Labour’s Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire. Key activists in his team were subsequently found burning the EU flag and posting Northern Irish loyalist song lyrics on Twitter.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/peter-geoghegan-adam-ramsay/meet-scottish-tory-behind-425000-dup-brexit-donation