Arron Banks faces fresh claims he broke electoral rules during Brexit drive and lied about it to MPs
2 min read
Pro-Brexit tycoon Arron Banks is facing fresh questions over claims he broke electoral rules by using his insurance business to boost the Leave vote during the EU referendum.
Former employees from his Eldon Insurance and Rock Services firm have said they worked for the Leave.EU campaign - set up by Mr Banks - from their company offices, according to the Observer.
The allegations have led to accusations that Mr Banks misled MPs when he faced a grilling in parliament over his referendum campaign activities.
It was revealed last week that top cops are investigating the tycoon over concerns he was "not the true source" of some £8m he spent during the 2016 referendum.
According to the Observer, leaked emails suggest staff from Eldon and Rock Services contacted companies for material apparently for use in the Brexit drive and discussed sharing data.
One ex-worker told the paper: “I made it absolutely clear that I didn’t want to work on the political stuff. I wasn’t comfortable with it. I didn’t want to be complicit in it.
“There were quite a lot of spats about it. People were frozen out if they refused to work on it.”
Meanwhile, the Open Democracy website has published evidence suggesting there was some crossover between insurance and political staff working for Mr Banks.
Damian Collins, the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said: “If Eldon employees were being paid to work on the campaign during the regulated period, it should have been a declared expense.
“We asked him directly if he’d used his insurance employees to work on the campaigns and he said they didn’t.”
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