Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Adam Ramsey - Revealed: How dark money split the Tories’ ruling elite

More depressing stuff about the evil thugs who rule this world, and it's all about money. Steve Keen, Michael Hudson, and many other fine people said it was best for the UK to leave the E.U., but according to this article, that's not such a good idea.

The British ruling elite are split into two groups: the old industrialists who want easy access into Europe, and the military-industrial-financial-complex which wants closer ties with the U.S. and its war machine.

Boris Johnson says, "f*ck industry".

Yep, the money is in endless wars, mercenaries, money laundering, and dodgy finance. We're taking about pure evil again!

There’s the people who funnelled dark money into the Leave campaigns – the cash openDemocracy revealed, which went through former Scottish Tory golden boy Richard Cook to the DUP, and the cash which came through Arron Banks, via Gibraltar, and which we’ve spent much of the last two years tracing.
Then there’s the tangle of dark money funded think tanks – groups like the IEA and the Taxpayers’ Alliance, who have been toiling away for unknown clients, promoting a hard Brexit for more than a year now.
As my openDemocracy colleagues have revealed, they have unprecedented access to government at the moment.
This network works closely with America’s corporate funded neo-con world, including groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who spend their time fighting against action on climate change or restrictions on gun sales, and are closely connected to both Trump’s White House, and British Trade Secretary Liam Fox.
Last year, for example, IEA director general Mark Littlewood toured the US, fundraising from wealthy donors and promising to “shred” EU regulations, according to a Greenpeace undercover investigation.
Littlewood’s colleague, Shanker Singham, was essentially the author of the famous “Malthouse compromise”.
One of the main groups Littlewood visited was agribusiness firms, keen to shape UK farming regulations after CAP.
Then there’s the military and the mercenaries. Brexit group Veterans for Britain had on its advisory board a string of powerful figures, including the former head of British Armed Forces, Field Marshal Lord Guthrie (who’s from just outside Dundee).
These people are connected to a string of private intelligence companies – Guthrie now works for the private intelligence agency Arcanum, whose chair has described Brexit as an “opportunity for American business”, while privatised military propaganda companies like Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ played contentious roles in the Brexit campaign.
These firms shouldn’t be underestimated – the UK is now the world centre for mercenary companies, not something it can say about many business sectors.
Though there is another notable one: money laundering.
And in two years investigating the Brexit elite, it’s very clear that most of the money launderers are desperate to leave the European regulated space.
More here - a chilling read.
The National

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