Odious Arron Banks’s condemnation of Nazanin provides a strong reason to reject Brexit
Arron Banks.
The man who bankrolled the Leave.EU campaign in last year’s EU referendum has graced us with his opinion on the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe question – and it ought to make you a Remainer on the spot.
Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in Iran last year, while she was visiting relatives in that country with her daughter, to celebrate the Persian New Year. The charge against her is apparently “plotting to topple the regime”.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson – ignorant fool that he is – made matters worse by telling Parliament she was training journalists when she was doing nothing of the sort. In fact, the assertion aided the claims of the Iranian authorities, who instantly dragged Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe back into court to threaten the addition of an extra five years to her prison sentence, doubling it.
Michael Gove – the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary – made matters worse by supporting Mr Johnson in an interview with Andrew Marr. While he did not repeat the falsehood that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists, he said he did not know why she had been in Iran and, after being told, made it seem that the explanation was unconvincing.
Both Mr Johnson and Mr Gove are now facing demands for their resignation, and minority prime minister Theresa May is facing demands for her to sack them if they won’t go willingly.
It is in this atmosphere that Arron Banks, who funded Leave.EU and is implicated in allegations of foreign – Russian? – interference in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union, has commented in support of Messrs Johnson and Gove. He tweeted:
It's nothing to do with Gove or Boris , but her own silly fault for going to Iran 🇮🇷, dopey https://t.co/2PpF6Q9OWL
— Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) November 12, 2017
He was responding to Labour MP Chris Bryant, who had tweeted:
It is scandalous that Gove adds further ambiguity to Nazanin position by being so poorly briefed. Look, ministers, the Iranians are dastardly so you need to be ruthlessly self-disciplined or you put Britons at risk.
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) November 12, 2017
In response, Mr Bryant stated:
This is what the face of Brexit looks like. https://t.co/EVF23Pr2jb
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) November 12, 2017
And he’s right.
Arron Banks was the biggest supporter of Brexit – certainly its biggest funder. While he remains a shadowy figure, known more for his money than any public profile, he is the person most likely to be directly responsible for the vote in favour of leaving the EU, because of the huge funding boost he gave to the Leave campaign.
And both Mr Johnson and Mr Gove supported Brexit, so one is led to believe that Mr Banks is speaking out in support of them, rather than because he has any interest at all in Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
That is not acceptable.
The fact that this man is willing to condemn an innocent woman who has been wrongly imprisoned in a foreign country, purely to save the faces of his Brexit collaborators, is utterly vile. It casts a shadow over the entire Brexit movement.
Anybody supporting Brexit should be considering this situation very carefully. These are their leaders and their leaders are absolutely disgusting.
Brexit is right at the top of the news agenda at the time of writing (November 13), as the issue of workers’ rights has been raised by the Labour Party and by businessman James Dyson – he wants to use our departure to hammer workers’ rights.
Again – if this is the reality of Brexit, why do we want it?
Ultimately, Mr Banks – along with Messrs Johnson, Gove and Dyson – may have done us a good turn.
By showing us how repulsive he really is, he provides an excellent reason to demand reversal of the referendum decision.
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What an obnoxious, ignorant and odious character Banks is. He speaks for nobody but his own loathsome self.
What a stupid and vile comment by Banks and what a stupid and vile attempt by Sivier and Bryant to smear the 17,500,000,000 voters who backed leaving the EU.
On the contrary – I haven’t smeared anybody.
I have merely pointed out that those millions of people might appreciate the chance to rethink their decisions, now they know a little more about the facts of Brexit and the people who shovelled lies at them in order to get that decision.
The population of the planet is about 7,500,000,000. No doubt you commented about Diane Abbott´s mathematical ability at some point. All the Brexit leaders mentioned in this article have acted in a way that most decent people will find repulsive. Farage has done the same by responding to an ex lovers claims that he didn´t behave as well as he might be questioning he psychological stability.
The language he chose points to some less desirable traits in other areas also. It’s not something I really thought about until recently and media coverage of the way language is used differently in male/female situations, but in this case … most people wouldn’t describe a man as ‘silly’ or ‘dopey’ … in fact, in my part of the world, both words can often be followed with the word ‘mare’ (usually as an endearment, but obviously not so in this case, and not great either way) … in other words, very definite female-orientated insults.
Sorry, but I disagree. Anybody can be described as “silly” or “dopey”.
You may remember I came in for a little flak a while ago, after I described Labour MP Jess Phillips as “mouthy”. Those complaints were based on a claim that it was a gendered adjective and I was being sexist, which was and is nonsense. For the record, I belong to one of the mouthiest Labour Party branches in Wales. Is that gendered?
That’s fair enough – as I said, it’s not something I usually notice, but did in this case. The words feel small, diminutive, for want of a better explanation. Maybe it’s partly regional and situational – for example, ‘mouthy’ doesn’t sit among the ‘gendered’ words in my mind – I’ve accused my sons of being so on occasion *shrugs*
UKIP are odious people in general, but there are lots of people that want to exit Europe for sensible reasons and not the lunatic fringe that occupy the right.
Europe is not the safe haven that people think it is and is deeply flawed, think about the way they treated Greece, Britain can be paralleled to Greece in that we have Trade Deficits averaging between £3-£4 billion a month, if we are to rectify that we will need to invest in home production Europe would see the means necessary to do that as anti competitive, but unless we do it things will only get worse.
There is a lot more to say regarding the legislation, Euro and economic investment which the EU would restrict Britain from doing, but suffice it to say that Europe has huge economic problems itself caused by Neo-Liberal politicians and their support for corporate power, remember TTIP and CETA.
Unlike Europe we have our own sovereign currency, that means we can’t fail the same way Greece has,- that gave up their own currency in favour of the Euro, a Single currency in it’s own right though is not the problem, but the way it is administered through the ECB, We also in Britain need to reform our Banking system, but essentially we are free of the ECB which means that any options are open to us depending on what government is in control.
The really important factor is to get a Labour government elected that will invest in its people, who are the real creators of wealth, then perhaps Europeans would see the benefits and we could build a proper relation between Europe’s nations and not just regard it as a business operation that suits a tiny few.
Brexit has come about because of the EU´s decision to tackle fraud after the high levels of tax dodging came to light whilst dealing with Greecés problems.
Banks is evil personified he has openly said he has no care for the poor, Disabled, Kids in need , Lucifer should be his name karma is coming you greedy sick being .