Well, as promised, I and a few pillars of the
community were outside the Gaiety on November 11th
distributing anti-racist leaflets to blue rinse bigot groupies.
It was an eye opener. A real losers convention of
cheapskates, petty tax avoiders and vinegar-titted, niggling nobodies
in general desperately looking for approval from someone only
slightly less inconsequential then their sorry selves. It was as if
the entire Manx daytime TV and UK Gold audience had simultaneously
taken out a pay-day loan to watch the kind of shyster who sold it to
them.
These were people too unimaginative to even crave
decent heroes. What a shower!
More seriously, about two thirds were pensioners,
who took our leaflets politely enough as we wished them a good
evening but invited them to read another side to the fairy stories
they were about to hear. Others were classic white flighters of the
kind a Manx government policy document of 1990 (with major
contributions by a former PR officer for the apartheid era Sun City
resort in South Africa) indicates our then leaders decided to attract
to this island.
The dead wood of the current House of Keys were
also there, though significantly no female, Jewish or other
politicians with non white or European partners. The Chief Minister
had apparently been invited to meet and introduce Farage, but passed
that dubious honour to an MLC whose prejudices are so well known that
hanging out in public with a Euro-fascist could not lower his
reputation further. Presumably, as the public can neither elect nor
dismiss this Klingon he and his chums could enjoy yet another night
of free drinks without worry.
Odder still was the presence of Manx Labour
politicians and various characters who like to pass themselves off as
trade unionists. The official line is that they were there to observe
the enemy, but why pay him to do so?
It might also be pertinent to know that they were
asked to join us leafleting. One professional trade unionist gave the
kind of rambling response which explains why he loses every battle
with government over public service pay and conditions. The other,
like the MLP's elected members, never even replied.
Another myth peddled is that the proceeds of the
event do not go back to Farage or his party, and that they went to
charity. Not credible.
Firstly, the only known charitable donation on the
night was passing buckets round the audience for the British Legion,
an empty flag-waving gesture which cost the organisers nothing.
Secondly, a Manx registered family trust can ( if
professionally constructed) also be a registered charity - though not
necessarily registered on the Isle of Man. The whole concept was
actually dreamt up by a well known figure in the dark 1980's days of
the Manx offshore industry.
A common wheeze is to register the charity in
another jurisdiction where nobody would look ( e.g. Monaco or
Gibraltar) but bind the trust itself by Manx law. Also, under current
law only the trustees would know the name of any underlying company
or where it is registered, and would only be obliged to reveal
anything in the chain of structures if a police force or government
agency had credible evidence of criminal activity. Given that such
agencies rarely even know of the existence of such entities unless a
criminal offers them up in a plea bargain this simply does not
happen.
Thirdly, the lunchtime before the show, Farage
supporters gave a reception for a carefully selected few at The
Claremont which nobody seems to want to mention. To get some idea why
this might be, take a look at
http://awaitingawesternrenaissance.blogspot.com/2008/10/foreign-owners-channel-cash-to-tories.html
and remember who owns the Claremont, and also
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/citydiary/10106554/Dashwood-Bangers-and-cash-for-Nigel-Farages-Brussels-blow-out.html
.
You may also find
http://www.directorstalk.com/nigel-farage-jim-mellon-paul-kavanagh-and-merryn-somerset-webb-at-master-investor-2013/
,
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/02/ukip-donor-belize-mining-southern-africa
and
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/04/ukip-donor-arron-banks-shows-tax-cheque-sent-hmrc
helps to give some idea how these things work and why middle ranking
businessmen with massively leveraged businesses might want to bother.
10 years ago