Denis MacShane is the former Minister of Europe and author of Brexit: How Britain Will Leave Europe published by IB Tauris in January 2015.
One of the undying Brexit myths is that it was a people’s revolt, a spontaneous anti-elite rebellion against a pro-European establishment. Yet we now learn that up to two-thirds of the cash that paid for Brexit came from just five extremely wealthy anti-European fanatics.
Between them, Arron Banks, Peter Hargreaves, James Hosking, Robert Edmiston and Crispin Odey channelled £14.9 million to different pro-Brexit groups, according to analysis by the team behind the Sunday Times Rich List.
These men all made their fortunes in the new traded capitalism which grew as the City took advantage of the EU Single Market from the 1990s onwards. Used to the European Commission’s constant struggle to keep up with the rapid developments in digitally driven speculation, many in the City found the idea of being regulated along with other financial service firms anathema.
Spread-betters and online gambling firms have always been amongst the biggest donors to anti-European politics and organisations like the eurosceptic think tank Open Europe.
The most high-profile is Nigel Farage’s friend Aaron Banks, who gave £8.1 million to Ukip-led Brexit campaigns. Banks has achieved more than his 15 minutes of fame and, like many of the new capitalism’s super-rich, likes to throw his money around to promote his politics and get press exposure.
The Electoral Commission is investigating the Ukip-linked Leave.EU campaign, which tipped the balance in favour of Brexit with lavish anti-EU propaganda material that flooded into people’s home with false claims of 75 million Turks about to come to Britain as Turkey was on the point of becoming an EU member state – a complete and utter lie.
The Electoral Commission says it is looking into “potential offences under the law”. Of course the multi-billionaires who funded the Brexit campaign can hire endless QCs to argue in court against whatever the Electoral Commission decides. In the prevailing climate, judges may also expect to find themselves under intense media or political pressure over any decisions perceived to be against Brexit.
It is important that the huge amount of money that has been poured into anti-EU campaigning in the last two decades is examined and revealed, from the dubious funding coming from hard right-wing sources in the United States to the bizarre links between UKIP and the Kremlin via Julian Assange, whose Wikileaks organisation seems to have become an arm of the Putin propaganda machine.
Vladimir Putin, potentially the richest man of all, was also involved in supporting and partly bankrolling the Brexit campaign via his global TV and media operations, Russia Today and Sputnik.
When you also consider the daily support during the campaign of major papers owned by Rupert Murdoch, Jonathan Harmsworth and the tax exile Barclay Brothers – not to mention the years of anti-Brussels stories beforehand – the Brexit win was a victory of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
At the very minimum, the myth that the Brexit result was the outcome of a disinterested, equally balanced and fair decision, resulting from fair debate free of outside influence, needs to be exposed as the lie it is.