Why Boris’ treaty should be rejected

So Boris Johnson has got a deal. And there have been two responses. One side is saying �This is Brexit!’ The other side is saying �This isn’t Brexit!’ Both feel wrong. No, spiked is not coming out in favour of Boris’s deal. On the contrary – we have profound concerns with it. In fact we view it as incredibly similar to Theresa May’s dreadful deal, as yet another fettering of the desire for national independence expressed by the Brexit vote. We will discuss that in more depth next week. But at the same time, we never thought of Brexit as something that could be delivered to us by the political class, whether May, Boris, Corbyn or anyone else. No, Brexit is a broader yearning for greater democracy, even for people power, and that yearning will not go away anytime soon. Whatever happens with this deal, the fight to re-democratise the UK against both foreign technocrats and domestic elitists will continue.

The Spanish authorities and Britain’s Remainer elite have a shared contempt for democracy.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/15/from-the-uk-to-catalonia-treating-voters-like-criminals/
.
A referendum on independence denounced as a criminal enterprise. A public vote written off as immoral and illegal. Political figures threatened with imprisonment if they even dream of pursuing the public’s desire for a clean break from old political arrangements.

But that’s enough about the outlook of Britain’s Remainer elites – let’s now look at what is happening in Catalonia.

Spain’s authoritarian assault on the Catalan politicians who organised 2017’s unofficial independence referendum is deeply disturbing. You don’t have to be a supporter of independence for Catalonia to see that handing these politicians prison sentences of between nine and 13 years is profoundly illiberal and anti-democratic.

It is utterly clueless, too. It will backfire terribly for the Spanish authorities. It already is, in fact. Yesterday’s huge and rowdy protests in Barcelona confirm that people do not take kindly to seeing their political representatives being treated in such a tyrannical way. If Spain’s establishment thought that making political prisoners of the organisers of the Catalan referendum would put a lid on the Catalonia question, it is in for a rude and difficult shock.

The events in Catalonia feel shocking. (Not to Brussels, though, which seems quite relaxed about this authoritarian behaviour in one of its own member states, just as it has been chilled out, and even supportive, of President Macron’s relentless year-long assault on the gilets jaunes.) And yet they feel familiar, too. The authorities’ insistence that a referendum was wicked, dangerous and fundamentally criminal – haven’t we heard that before?

Yes, we have. From Britain’s own Remainer establishment and Remainer chattering classes. For three years now, these arch anti-democrats have been denouncing the EU referendum as a corrupted event, even as a criminal event.

From Carole Cadwalladr’s conspiracy theories about Brexit being a �criminal enterprise’ to mainstream politicians insisting the referendum result is illegitimate because the whole thing was hijacked by evil Russians or dodgy businessmen, there has been a palpable effort within the elite to depict Brexit as a crime.

Indeed, Leave campaigners were reported not only to the Electoral Commission but also the National Crime Agency. The NCA’s investigation of aspects of a Leave group’s funding got the Remainer elites very excited. They were sorely disappointed when it ruled that no crimes had been committed. Because, like Spain’s authoritarians, they wanted this independence referendum to be judged a criminal act.

Remainers even fantasise about imprisoning those who pursue a clean-break Brexit. Witness the glee with which they inform Boris Johnson and others that they could end up in the slammer if they act against the Benn Bill that forbids a No Deal Brexit without parliament’s approval. As the Guardian put it, �Legal experts have warned that Boris Johnson could face prison if he refuses to abide by the bill’. The anti-democratic activist Femi Oluwole has fantasised about Boris being jailed for 20 years.

The Spanish authorities’ jailing of Catalan independence campaigners is horrendous. All democrats should oppose it. But here’s a disturbing truth: the Spanish elite has only done to independence campaigners in Catalonia what British Remainers fantasise about doing to us Brexiteers.

In fact, Remainers’ fantasies – if they ever came true – would be even worse than what Spain has done. Spain heavy-handedly clamped down on the organisers of an unofficial referendum – Remainers want to criminalise and overturn an entirely legitimate, entirely democratic referendum. That’s how far these people have gone down the road of authoritarianism.

only time i've agreed with nicola sturgeon on anything

i can't abide her and blackford amongst others in the SNP but having them carted off to the nick for a 10 stretch on trumped up political charges for standing up to the government is quite another thing entirely

Then we stay in.

There seems no alternative.

Barcelona will keep the EU occupied for a while.

EU will give Spain permission to do wtf they want.

lets hope so Mr T

i sure didi & thanks for the laugh. What a numptyarse of a so-called Party. The SNP one on QT last night should be committed. And these cretins along with Bercoward are running Parliament

Wouldn't it be great for Northern Ireland though,best of both worlds,win win for them.

all the ladybird factories (are any still around) all those irish lasses working in them and the 'Fish Squadron' we used to keep there - jolly times were had by all

slurp!!!

that was londonderry  or derry depending on which tribe you were

I am a Mercian.   grrrrrrr!!!  also known to purr!!!!  mainly

vast quantities of mead etc is guzzled on feast days

I make sure there are a many merry mercians most months etc

I have had Enuff of The Lot it,  that C@nt Cameron and His Sidekick Gideon Have a lot to Answer For

But what has Been exposed ,is what were are Dealing with in the Country  CIV LIB LUVVIE SHYTE ... and foooking Plenty of it

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party chairman, Richard Tice, is facing calls to “urgently” address concerns about his family’s links to offshore tax havens, after an investigation by openDemocracy today reveals that two offshore firms own large shareholdings in his family’s business.

The Brexit Party MEP has also been urged to stand down from the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, which oversees EU tax policy, until the matter is fully investigated.

Tice, a co-founder of Arron Banks’s Leave.EU, says he has no knowledge of who runs two offshore companies that have held shares for over 25 years in his family business, Sunley Family Limited, and which now own a combined 42% stake. Tice denies any financial interests of the offshore companies.

Politicians and international tax experts have today demanded Tice “urgently clarify” who is behind these companies. John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network said: “Tice and his fellow Brexit travellers have called for �taking back control’ yet nothing undermines parliamentary democracy in Britain more than offshore tax havens.”

Molly Scott Cato MEP, who sits with Tice on the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, said: "If it turns out that Richard Tice has been dodging taxes then there would be an obvious conflict of interest with his role on the committee that oversees EU tax policy on behalf of European citizens.”

She has called for Tice to stand down from the committee “until we can be sure that he is not taking advantage of the very tax havens that are enabling the rich and powerful to evade their social responsibility to pay tax”.

Richard Tice was a director of Sunley Family Limited for 25 years until 2017, and remains one of the single largest shareholders, alongside several family members. Sunley Family Limited appears to pay £1.2m tax on a profit of £15.7m in the four years to 2017 – an effective tax rate of 7%, according to calculations by openDemocracy.

In Al Jazeera’s 'Head to Head' series, due to be aired in the UK at 9pm tonight, the commentator Ash Sarkar has asked Tice: “Why should we trust you on the direction of this country when a company that you set up, most of its dividends go through tax havens?”

Tice denied this was the case, saying: “I’m a UK taxpayer. I was one of the shareholders, there were about a dozen shareholders in that business. There were UK shareholders and they pay UK tax.” He has also confirmed that his family does not, nor ever has, received dividends from these companies.

Responding to Tice’s statement that he doesn’t know who is behind the Panama and British Virgin Islands-based firms that control a 42% stake in his family business, John Christensen said that company directors should know who they are dealing with “otherwise you could be dealing with money launderers. You have to do due diligence.”

Tice has rejected this claim, telling openDemocracy: “When you’re on the board of companies, that doesn’t mean you know who’s behind the shareholders of the company, and shareholders can change and do change. There’s no legal obligation to know.”

Tice also denies that he has any financial interest in either of the Panama and BVI-based companies that have invested in Sunley Family Limited, or that he has avoided paying UK tax.

Bad Boy of Brexit
Richard Tice is one of the “bad boys of Brexit” in Brexit bankroller Arron Banks’s book of the same name. He was elected as an MEP for the Brexit Party this May, in a vote which saw Nigel Farage’s party claim the largest number of UK seats in the European Parliament.

Wealth long preceded fame. In 1987, members of Tice’s family founded Sunley Family Limited, a property development firm which shares a name with Tice’s maternal grandfather, the businessman Bernard Sunley. In 1992, Tice was appointed as company director alongside several family members.

During the early 1990s, 40% of the company’s shares were transferred to two companies in tax havens – Sunciera Holdings Corporation (registered in Panama) and Shuttlecock Holdings Limited (registered in the British Virgin Islands).

In an email to openDemocracy, Tice said he is “not aware of the ownership of those companies”, and later said on the phone that he had “no right to know” who was behind them.

According to the Panamanian business register, a Swiss law firm specialising in tax planning services, Lenz & Staehelin, incorporated Sunciera Holdings Corporation in 1991. In the early 1990s, the company became a minority shareholder in Sunley Family Limited, but by 1995 its shareholding had expanded to become the single largest.

From 2009, Shuttlecock Holdings Limited in British Virgin Islands is listed as one of the single largest shareholders. As both entities are registered in secrecy jurisdictions, it is not possible to ascertain the identities of the companies’ owners or their financial status.

Over the past four years, Sunley Family Limited has paid its shareholders £5.5 million in dividends – of which at least £2.7 million has ended up in Panama and the British Virgin Islands, and is therefore not eligible for UK tax. Panama levies a 5% tax on dividends and the BVI 0%. Meanwhile the UK tax for dividends over £150,000 is 38%.

For the financial years 2014-2017, the company has paid £1.2 million in UK corporation tax on a profit of £15.7 million – an effective tax rate of 7.6%.

Bringing back control to the UK?
Another subsidiary of the Sunley group, the estate management company Sunley Farms Limited, is 100% owned by Sunciera Holdings Corporation in Panama. According to documents obtained from the Land Registry, the company is the owner of the family estate, Godmersham Park, which was bought by Tice’s uncle John Sunley in 1983.

At present, the estate is used on a commercial basis by the Association of British Dispensing Opticians. Company accounts for the year ending December 2015 show a £5 million loan from parent company Sunciera – suggesting that profit generated in the UK by Sunley companies was transferred to Panama and then reinvested into the UK-registered company through loans. Tice said he knew nothing about this deal, and has no involvement in either company. Such practices are within the law and there is no suggestion that any of the payments are illegal.

In April 2019, Sunciera became a member of the Sunley Property LLP – a property partnership consisting of Tice and several members of his family. Tice is listed at Companies House as a member of Sunley Property LLP, but has denied that he is involved in running it. The recent expansion of Sunciera’s involvement with Sunley Properly LLP points to an increase of offshore vehicles within company structures controlled by Tice and his relatives, according to experts.

Arrangements of this kind are to come under increased scrutiny as part of the EU’s response to the Panama Papers scandal, with the introduction of the EU’s 5th Money Laundering Directive in January 2020, and new requirements on the disclosure of beneficial ownership for companies operating in Europe.

Tice has been a vocal critic of EU tax policy in the past. With the UK’s imminent departure from the EU, it remains to be seen how much of the directive will be implemented in the UK. Under the current UK system, companies can structure their operations via subsidiaries in tax havens to reduce their tax contributions in the UK.

Speculating on Tice’s support for Brexit, John Christensen said: “The EU Anti Tax Avoidance Directive, which came into force at the start of 2019, might be a reason why Tice and his business colleagues want to leave the EU. Corporate tax abuse costs European countries hundreds of billions annually, yet there is no sign that Tice will use his position as an MEP to support efforts to tackle this scourge.”

Christensen added: “Extensive use of tax havens is totally inconsistent with [Tice’s] claims about wanting to strengthen parliamentary democracy in Britain.”

In correspondence with openDemocracy Tice has said: “My support for Brexit is to bring back power and control to the UK, as a sovereign nation. It has nothing to do with these totally incorrect assertions.”

trilby after posting some actual spam incorrectly states that someone is posting spam.

Both Merkel and Macron seemed happy with the deal. That alone made me worry.

I trust Farage on this as he knows the EU backwards.

We can only hope Boris has a Baldrick moment and comes up with a cunning plan to shaft Mr Benn's snidey tactic and make a dash for freedom...at last.

Ordog They had a phone call earlier, so he'll know what's coming.

You're spot on, Inj.  The whole lot of them hoopin and a-hollerin when the "deal" was announced was an instant give away.

Goose bored of posting incessant spam everywhere that he now feels the need to post it on other people's threads.  What an antisocial waynekerr.  No surprise being an anti-democrat though, they're all like that.

Bozo has sent 2 letters - 1st one unsigned; 2nd one saying he doesn't "Believe extension is required"

if Ordog ignore the 2nd letter; how will that help the process & good feeling?

Hi Donald.Sorry. I sent it in error. It's my bad. We are leaving Oct31st as agreed. Cheers Bozo Johnson.