I’ve just read the transcript of Arron Banks’s Marr appearance. Some thoughts below. (A health warning: whatever Banks says, his corporate structures are highly convoluted. This is why he has struggled on occasion to explain them himself.)
The transcript is here. Banks is keen to avoid any suggestion that Rock Holdings – one of his two Isle of Man holding companies – had anything to do with his Brexit campaign, because the IoM is not a legal source for donations. news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h…
There are a few things I can’t make add up. Leave.eu told the Electoral Commission that Banks used Rock Services only as a proxy or third party. Now Banks says the Brexit funding was “generated out of insurance business written in the UK”. 
The next inconsistency is that the payments aren’t found in the “related party transactions” in Rock Services’ accounts.
But let’s pursue Banks’s second version for now, that the money came from his sizeable insurance business without touching his personal bank account. See his description below. We hit an immediate problem: none of Banks’s UK entities turn over anything like £250m.
He appears to mean Southern Rock Insurance Ltd, the troubled Gibraltar company that underwrites car insurance polices sold by Eldon Insurance Services. (Eldon only takes commission on the policy sales and is separately owned through another Banks-controlled IoM company)
So while Banks implied Rock Services generated the cash, he probably meant Soutern Rock did. Both are owned by Rock Holdings in the Isle of Man but if the money went directly from Southern Rock (Gib) to UK it would presumably be legal (Gibraltar is a legal donation source).
Does this explanation make sense? No. Why? Go back to 2014 when Banks was in a public row with the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. The regulator was alarmed at Southern Rock’s shaky finances. Banks and his fellow directors agreed to step down. globalreinsurance.com/gibraltar-base…
In 2015 Southern Rock got a mystery bailout from his other IoM holding company. In 2016, when Banks seems to suggest Southern Rock was funding Brexit, it made a heavy loss. Its capital level was £700k above the threshold where the regulator would begin feeling its collar again.
Could Southern Rock’s directors – Arron Banks, remember, not among them – have signed off on a big political donation in these circumstances? It is not a decision they’d take lightly if they valued their careers, I’d venture. Maybe the NCA will find out.
The upshot? I think all roads lead back to that mystery bailout. If there is an innocent explanation for that then there is probably an innocent explanation for how Arron Banks afforded Brexit. opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/m…
I think I cocked up linking the thread, so it begins here again. Oops.
