Matthew Taylor

Sunday Roundup – Arron Banks fights back

The day’s most anticipated interview came from Arron Banks, the businessman and co-founder of the Brexit campaign group Leave.EU, who agreed to talk with Andrew Marr. Earlier in the week, the Electoral Commission announced that it was referring Banks to the National Crime Agency amid questions over the exact source of Leave.EU’s funding for the referendum campaign in 2016. One of the central allegations raised is whether an £8 million loan came through Rock Holdings, a business based in the Isle of Man, which would contravene UK law:

AM: Were you the real source of that money?

AB: …Of course I was. The money came from a UK registered company. It was generated from cash, generated from businesses in the UK. The whole misunderstanding resolves around the role of Rock Holdings as a holding company…

AM: So where did the money come from?

AB : The money came from Rock Services which was a UK limited company. It was generated out of insurance business written in the UK…

AM: So Rock Holdings was not connected in any way to money going into Leave.EU?

AB: No. Absolutely not.

Banks also asserted to Marr that ‘there was no Russian money and no interference of any type. I want to be absolutely clear about that’. He attacked the Electoral Commission, stating that they ‘have a bias on this’, but added that he hoped the National Crime Agency were ‘going to see it for what it is’. Banks also tried to rattle Marr, at one stage telling him ‘It’s not like I’m using a super injunction to try and hide my affairs here’. On Brexit itself, Banks remarked somewhat flippantly that the ‘disgraceful behaviour of the government’ meant that ‘I think we would have been better to probably Remain’.

James Brokenshire – No delay on gambling crackdown

Most popular

Lana Hempsall

Motability won’t give up its lucrative business without a fight

Marr went on to interview the Housing Secretary James Brokenshire, picking him up on the resignation of the Sports Minister Tracey Crouch. Crouch resigned after Monday’s Budget, during which it was announced that the government would not cut the maximum stake on fixed odds betting terminals from £100 to £2 until October 2019, a waiting period which Crouch described as ‘unjustifiable’:

AM: How was it possible for the government to lose one of its most popular ministers, Tracey Crouch, the Sports Minister, over these gambling machines?

JB: We want to see this delivered effectively for all of the good reasons that Tracey identifies. But it’s wrong to say that there’s been a delay. We had not committed to introducing on a particular day. We’d been called on to introduce it before April 2020, we are doing that, we want to see this introduced properly and effectively so that we can actually make the difference in this area.

Brokenshire went on to tell Marr that he was ‘taking action on a number of different fronts’ in order to rejuvenate the UK’s high streets, referring to ’empty vacant shops [and] how we can turn these over into community hubs, actually bring them back into use. He also paid tribute to Jeremy Heywood, the former head of the civil service, who has died of lung cancer at the age of 56. Brokenshire said ‘Jeremy was an outstanding public servant, some would say the public servant of his generation’, and praising ‘his leadership, his intellect, but also his good humour and his kindness’.

Yvette Cooper – ‘I am very worried about the state of the Home Office’

The Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee has told Sophie Ridge that she is concerned about the department that she oversees. Cooper’s remarks come after some high-profile scandals, including the Windrush debacle, and Sajid Javid’s recent apology over forcing immigrants to give DNA samples:

SR: Is it the Home Office that is not fit for purpose?

YC: I think that’s a really big question and I am very worried actually about the state of the Home Office. We had the Alex Allan review that was published… which did raise questions about the advice that was given to Amber Rudd as former Home Secretary… I think overall we have just had one set of mistakes after another… and the reason this matters is because these are the kinds of decisions that have… really devastating effects for people’s lives when the Home Office gets things wrong.

Cooper also highlighted a ‘conflict’ between Downing Street and the Home Office, commenting that ‘No. 10 is still trying to maintain that free movement will end on day one if there is no deal’ and that she saw the Immigration Minister and her officials as ‘a bit caught in the crossfire on that’. When Ridge inquired as to whether the Home Office was too large and if immigration should be moved out of the department, Cooper replied ‘Personally I do think that is something that should be looked at’. Reacting to the breaking news of Jeremy Heywood’s death, a visibly upset Cooper said ‘I think [he] was a wonderful public servant… I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude’.

Kemi Badenoch – We take Islamophobia seriously

Ridge was later joined by Kemi Badenoch, one of the Conservative party’s vice chairs. Ridge asked Badenoch about Islamophobia within the party, an issue which the former Deputy Chairman Baroness Warsi had claimed is ‘widespread’, and has prompted calls for an inquiry from the Muslim Council of Britain. Badenoch rejected the charge:

KB: I completely disagree with Baroness Warsi’s view… We take every single allegation of Islamophobia seriously and where we do find party members or people who hold positions in local government doing things, we suspend them, we investigate them…

SR: So why is it then that the Muslim Council of Britain has called for an inquiry?

KB: I don’t think that the Muslim Council of Britain is an organisation that would look very favourably on the Conservative party anyway, so I think there is probably a political motive there. When I have looked at the cases that we’ve talked about I’ve seen strong investigations which have been done fairly and there are many people in the party who are Muslims who don’t recognise the allegations about Islamophobia.

Offering a theory for the Conservative party’s difficulties in attracting large numbers of BAME voters, Badenoch said ‘Ethnic minorities tend to emigrate from… socialist countries so socialist politics is more normal’. On social media, she told Ridge that ‘I actually don’t check my Twitter – unless it’s someone I follow, I don’t see the messages’. Ridge also asked about her early life in Nigeria. Badenoch responded that when she went to school she would ‘cut grass with a machete’, adding ‘you [had] to bring in all your own equipment’.

Vince Cable – ‘It’s quite possible’ I will step down next year

And finally, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has hinted that he may stand aside to make way for the next generation as early as next year.

VC: I’m trying to be professional about it and create an orderly succession, and I’ve said that there are certain jobs for me to do and one of them is to see us through the Brexit process. We have got local government elections next year, there may be an early election, there are certain reforms I am going to put through the party which will take some months. When all of that’s completed I am ready to help the next generation move on but I’m not setting a time on it.

SR: It sounds from what you’re saying it could be next year, is that right?

VC: It’s quite possible.

When Ridge asked if he would join Nick Clegg at Facebook, Cable swiftly replied ‘No!’, but praised his predecessor as ‘very capable’. Despite the announcement that his party will be cutting down on staff at its London headquarters, Cable signalled that ‘as far as the future of the Lib Dems is concerned, I’m optimistic’. He also hailed Jeremy Heywood as ‘the perfect civil servant…’ adding ‘it is rather tragic that he has died at such a young age’.

Read next

Trending

Julie Bindel

Grooming gangs inquiry is welcome, but too late

The announcement that there will, after all, be a statutory inquiry into the child rape and pimping gang scandal – euphemistically referred to as ‘grooming gangs’ – should be welcomed. The words ‘euphemism’, ‘whitewashing’ and ‘cover-up’ apply to more than just the language used to describe this phenomenon. I first investigated the scandal back in the early 2000s, and published the very first piece exposing it in the national media in 2007. A quarter of a century later, little has changed. A small

Also in Politics

Also by Matthew Taylor

Latest

Comments