Int'l trade secretary Liz Truss appointed Singham to a key UK government commission on trade and agriculture - while he was continuing to work for undisclosed private clients.
"These relationships should be known and not hidden" says @AngusMacNeilSNP
Transparency docs show that Competere - Singham's private firm - paid $20k to Transnational Strategy Group, a Washington DC-based lobbying firm who helped broker a series of meetings in Washington for Singham and former Northern Irish first minister David Trimble.
Among those Singham and Trimble met in DC were congressman Richard Neal, head of the influential Ways and Means Committee that would greenlight a post-Brexit trade deal.
Neal - like Joe Biden - has warned that any post-Brexit trade deal would depend on Good Friday Agreement.
Singham said that his trip to Washington was a “pro-bono mission” paid for out of his own pocket. But David Trimble said he understood the trip to have been paid for by “some conservatives”, though he was unsure of the exact source of the money.
“Competere is not a lobbyist but a trade consultancy,” Singham said.
Accounts showed his firm owed £66,313 in corporation tax for last financial year, suggesting earnings of around £350,000.
Singham was appointed by Liz Truss personally to Brexit trade and agriculture commission in July. He resigned from a similar role at DIT in 2018 after openDemocracy reported that he was also working for a commercial lobbying firm... opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
Absolutely great to work with @marcusleroux and @Source_Mat on this. If you don't follow their work, you really should!
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Reform has been very reliant on Richard Tice’s money
Since 2020, it has received more than 50 loans collectively worth around £1.4million from a company called Tisun Investments Ltd, which is owned by Tice.
Another company controlled by Tice, Leave Means Leave Limited, has also donated more than £1 million.
@SteveJGoodrich says that a company owned by a party leader making interest-free loans “raises questions as to whether they are in fact a donation.”
Tice says he is “very proud” to have put his money into an “entrepreneurial political start-up” and that around £350,000 of the loans have been repaid
Reform is a very unusual political party
Most parties are unincorporated associations with a membership. Reform is a company - with Nigel Farage as the majority shareholder.
Tice, who owns a third of Reform, said that Farage’s majority shareholding was “irrelevant”
But Farage’s 53% shareholding means he can remove Tice if he wants to - or dissolve Reform completely
🚨Did Government abuse FOI law to bury Liz Truss’s £15k food and booze bill?
🔴Freedom of Information should be 'applicant blind'
🔴So why was the FOI with Truss’s embarrassing in-flight bills to Politico before it went to the requester, @EmilyThornberry?
🔴Government trying to bury bad news on Budget Day?
Last year @EmilyThornberry sent an FOI about ministers spending on food and drink on private jets
For 1 year+ Cabinet Office delayed responding
Then, last Wednesday, CO responds with Truss £15k spend - but it sends the FOI to Politico at least 30mins before Thornberry gets it.... and suggests the story is published in that afternoon’s Politico Playbook email
Why last Wednesday? Well, was also Budget day… a very good day to bury bad news?
If government was trying to bury Truss’s in-flight spending in post-Budget scrum, didn't work
Politico published Truss story day after Budget, with @EmilyThornberry 's comments
But government’s seeming attempt to abuse the FOI process for political ends has not been reported
'PopsCons’ are backed by a company called Popular Development Partners Ltd
The firm - which was only set up in October - has two directors: ex IEA chief Littlewood and ‘Angela Mannion’, who appears to have no online footprint (h/t @GoodLawProject)
But based on various pieces of evidence, including email addresses and dates of birth, it appears that Angela Mannion is also Angela Harbutt .... who happens to be the wife of Mark Littlewood and, until August, director of development at IEA
🔴 This time last year many said Tufton Street was 'finished' after Liz Truss crashed and burned.
Exactly 12 months later: Rishi Sunak's net zero U-turn.
And who is cheering loudest and claiming credit?
Tufton Street's dark money think tanks... and guess who funds them?🧵
'Net Zero Watch' is the policy wing of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
GWPF - address 55 Tufton Street - has received funding from US groups linked to the oil and gas sector, despite saying that it was independent of the fossil fuel industry...