Aaron Banks ‘writes off £7m loan’ as Leave.EU goes into liquidation

theguardian.com:

The Brexit campaign group Leave.EU has gone into liquidation with its controversial co-founder Arron Banks appearing to write off a loan worth more than £7m.

Documents submitted to Companies House also reveal that the anti-EU lobbying group, which was fronted by Nigel Farage during the 2016 EU referendum campaign, has failed to pay tens of thousands in fines owed to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for breaches of data law.

Yet the decision by Banks to apparently write off £7,051,987 in loans to Leave.EU will attract most controversy after years of speculation over the source of his funding to the EU referendum campaign.

In 2018 a referral was made by the Electoral Commission to the National Crime Agency claiming Banks was not the “true source” of the loan and that the money had come “from impermissible sources”.

The NCA found no evidence of criminality, concluding that Banks took a loan from an Isle of Man company he owned, which he was legally entitled to do.

Banks had denied any wrongdoing and dismissed claims surrounding his funding as “ludicrous”.

Critics yesterday said the apparent writing off of £7m might be seen by Banks as a reasonable price for the disruption caused by Brexit.

Chris Bryant, chair of the House of Commons standards committee, said: “I wonder when we’ll wake up to the real damage that’s been done [by Banks] to this country. The £7m that he’s out of pocket is frankly the least of it.”

Another Labour MP, Ben Bradshaw, said: “£7m is a very small fine for the long-term damage that Banks has done to Britain.”

Bradshaw, who previously called on the government to investigate the possible role played by “dark money” in the EU referendum more widely, added: “The whole sorry saga illustrates the