Oral evidence: Fake News, HC 363
Oral evidence, 12 June 2018.
Witnesses
Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore.
Chair
Good morning and welcome to this further evidence session of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee into our inquiry into disinformation and fake news. I am very pleased to welcome Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore to give evidence to the Committee this morning. It is worth noting for the record that, although we have had a few ups and downs getting here, you have freely agreed to come and give evidence, unlike some other people we have tried to get in this inquiry. We have not had to summons you, you are here because you accepted the invitation of the Committee and we are grateful for that. In your correspondence on Friday, you referenced that you intended to lodge an appeal against the Electoral Commission’s decision. I think you were expecting to do that today.
Andy Wigmore
Yes, it was lodged at 10.00 am this morning.
Chair
That is fine. Under the circumstances—and it is not particularly core to our inquiry anyway—as it is now sub judice, we will not be asking you any questions about the Electoral Commission’s investigation or your appeal. That should properly be dealt with separately, so it is not ground that we are looking to cover this morning.
Andy Wigmore
Can I ask a question?
Chair
Yes, of course.
Andy Wigmore
Mr Chairman, in light of the fact that—according to Guido—you had some hospitality from Mr Putin’s number one man in the United Kingdom, do you not think you are a bit conflicted, quizzing us about this today? I want to make a suggestion: perhaps you might want to recuse yourself and let one of the other people take over as Chairman, so resign so you can ask us questions independently.
Chair
It is a nice try, Mr Wigmore; you may have better intel than me. I did not know that Roman Abramovich was Putin’s number one man in London, but you may know more than I do. All I can say is that I got invited to the football. I did not meet the owner and I was not offered Stalin’s vodka. I am not as good at pushing their buttons as you are.
Arron Banks
But, Damian, you do know how it looks, that you have hospitality or you meet Russians and then people write terrible things about you.
Chair
Yes, I know, but—
Arron Banks
I am just mentioning it.
Andy Wigmore
There is also another issue that is very important.
Arron Banks
No, I don’t think we want to get too distracted before we—
Chair
No, I think let’s start as we mean to go on. All I can say is that I have declared in the Register of Members’ Interests my acceptance of two tickets to go and watch Chelsea play Crystal Palace. I can say that there were no inducements, offers, and shares in gold mines, nothing transpired at that football match that would give this inquiry any cause for concern.
Arron Banks
No honeytraps?
Chair
No honeytraps; no, nothing at all. Chelsea won 2:1 and that was it. That was the extent of the entertainment. We are going to start off on the questioning and I would like to start on—sorry, Giles.
Giles Watling
I ought to declare my sworn interest that I did mention to you earlier, that at one point—this is an interest, just to cover ourselves legally—you were going to stand against me in Clacton.
Arron Banks
I think it was for the day though, wasn’t it?
Giles Watling
But we have no connection apart from that. Thank you.
Chair
Thank you. I do not think there are any other declarations of interest, so we will start the session. I wanted to start off with the issues that led us initially to invite you to give evidence, and, indeed, you requesting to give evidence during the session with Alexander Nix. I want to—just for the benefit of the record and for the benefit of our inquiry—cover off some of the questions around Cambridge Analytica, which I know you are obviously very familiar with. Brittany Kaiser said to the Committee that the initial introduction made to link you with Cambridge Analytica was made through Steve Bannon. Is that correct?
Arron Banks
The initial introduction was through Steve Bannon, yes.
Chair
Yes. Did you have a relationship with Steven Bannon before that time or did he reach out to you?
Arron Banks
I met Steve Bannon on two occasions. He was obviously involved in Breitbart and knew Nigel Farage quite closely. I met him twice in London, yes.
Chair
Robert Mercer obviously is heavily connected with that organisation as well. Is he someone that you know? Have you met?
Arron Banks
I have never met Robert Mercer. He is a friend of Nigel’s.
Chair
Do you remember when you had first contact with Cambridge Analytica? Do you remember when that was?
Arron Banks
I don’t have the exact timeline, but I am pretty sure the way it has been reported is correct.
Chair
It would be some point probably earlier in 2015, would that be correct?
Arron Banks
Yes.
Chair
At that time you were obviously thinking about the role you would play in the referendum. Had you started thinking about the sorts of services Cambridge Analytica could supply? Were you actively looking for a company that could work with you to provide expertise on data analytics?
Arron Banks
Yes. It was proposed that they were experts in, as you say, data analytics, and we spoke to them. They made a pitch to us. I know we are not allowed to talk about the Electoral Commission, but I think their report shows no evidence that we went ahead with the pitch and that is the case.
Chair
Was it your intention to do so, that if you had been successful in securing the designation that you would have used them?
Arron Banks
Yes. We put it into the designation document that went to the Electoral Commission as a record.
Chair
There was some talk about—I think Dominic Cummings has written about this in his blog yesterday—
Arron Banks
I don’t think you can believe everything Mr Cummings has to say.
Chair
No. What he talked about there—
Arron Banks
I think in the same blog he recommended that I was thrown down a mineshaft, so I am not really—
Andy Wigmore
No, it was gold mine.
Arron Banks
He used “gold mine shaft”, I think.
Chair
No, exactly. He has had some comments about me as well on his blog. One thing I want to ask about, there was some talk—and in fact I think you advocated in the New Year in 2016—about whether Leave.EU and Vote Leave should become one organisation rather than two competing organisations.
Arron Banks
There was a lot of heat around the fact there were two campaigns. A lot of donors and a lot of Conservative MPs and others thought that it would be better to try to have a united front. As it turns out—it is fairly well on the record—we despise Dominic Cummings, Matthew Elliott and the other people that tried to turn it into part of the Tory Party. From our perspective, Vote Leave was an attempt to own the referendum from the Tory Brexiteers’ point of view and exclude UKIP and the other participants. We were certainly not very friendly with them.
Chair
Yes. One of the things Dominic Cummings cites is that he disagreed with your use of Facebook data, the way you were using Facebook data. Presumably, that was the model that had been proposed by Cambridge Analytica.
Arron Banks
We built up a huge social media following, both on Facebook and Twitter. I think over 1 million people follow us. We had huge engagement, but that was internally generated. We did not use Cambridge Analytica. It is quite interesting, if you go to Dominic Cummings and Tim Shipman’s definitive work on the referendum, he says that Daniel Hannan said that Vote Leave scraped Google data and sent it to a team of astrophysicists on the west coast. I think this is just demonstrable nonsense. There is a lot of myth around some of these things. That is one of my big issues with some of the output of the Committee, taking witnesses and the evidence given and then it turns into almost fact. You mentioned Brittany Kaiser at the beginning of that. She has now subsequently said that she was sent by Cambridge Analytica to see Julian Assange. She was sent there to give them, I think, cryptocurrency to hand on to WikiLeaks. What we would maintain is that a number of these kind of key honest whistleblowers that were put in front of the Committee as decent, upstanding employees that were going to change the world by telling the truth: you have her saying she went to see Julian Assange; you have Chris Wylie, the other guy that has recently come out and said he has been in receipt of our stolen emails that appeared in the The Sunday Times for three months, and his evidence has been sent to US intelligence and British intelligence. If you see it from our point of view, there has been a whole inquiry into Cambridge Analytica, which has led on to an Electoral Commission investigation, on to an ICO investigation, and it has been conflated from two witnesses that, frankly, the credibility of them is shot to pieces. Brittany Kaiser held a press conference the day after appearing in this Committee to launch her own business called Brittany Kaiser RIP Data Theft. You can see, from our point of view, these are not particularly credible witnesses, but they have been cloaked in a sort of: these were great whistleblowers. The Guardian has written fabulous stories off the back of all this. In fact, they are Walter Mitty-type characters. I am sorry; I am putting my point of view.
Chair
You are entitled to your point of view, and part of the reason for inviting you—
Arron Banks
Thank you, by the way, for letting me express that. It is useful we can talk about these things.
Chair
Part of the reason for inviting people like you to come and give evidence is so that, as part of our inquiry, we can put to you issues that we have received and give you the chance to respond to them, which is what we are looking to do.
Arron Banks
But can you see what I am saying?
Chair
I can see what you are saying. For us, because Brittany Kaiser was someone that shared a platform with Leave.EU at the launch and was working directly on the campaign, it is obviously of interest to us when allegations are made about that to talk to some of the people that were doing that work and hear what they have to say, but obviously we want to hear your views on that as well.
Arron Banks
I just merely say that, subsequent to their appearance, their credibility is somewhat shot to pieces by the somewhat fantastical statements they have made afterwards. They enjoyed their time in the limelight and they have obviously conflated quite a lot from it.
Chair
Obviously, that is your view and you have expressed it and you are entitled to it. When did you first start discussing with the Cambridge Analytica team the way in which you could use data held by your insurance company to create data models?
Arron Banks
We had two or three meetings with them and it became clear to me that—as is true in a lot of politics—there is a lot of sizzle and sometimes not a lot of substance. It became clear that this company is really an advertising agency, which I think is what Nix has actually said, that then did a little bit of politics on the side. We became increasingly concerned that the services they were offering were just that, an advertising agency.
Andy Wigmore
It is worth noting that—by the way, the insurance company and Cambridge Analytica, we never discussed the same things; we never involved the insurance company and Cambridge Analytica ever—when you are an insurance company, it is marketing. If you take a look at how marketing works, you are talking about pay-per-click, Google ads, all these kind of mechanisms that are used to market insurance products. We were very skilled at that; we have years of understanding of that. All we did was apply that knowledge and marketing from insurance to the referendum initially, to the campaign, because that is what we knew. What we decided to do is try to go and find the best people we possibly could in the world, so we looked at an organisation called Goddard Gunster, which I think you are familiar with, in the United States. All they do is referenda; that is all they do. Here we believe that Cambridge Analytica was perceived certainly as one of the best political campaigning companies, so of course we looked at them. The truth is, our marketing people and the people we had around us probably knew more than they do when it comes to trying to get that message across. They are skilled at insurance marketing. We took that knowledge, which we both deeply held, and applied it to the campaign.
Arron Banks
Going back to what you said about the two campaigns, I think we won the referendum because there were two campaigns. The Vote Leave was kind of soft Tory and appealed to the middle class kind of voters. We were very much appealing to more the sort of Labour voters, where immigration is a big issue. I think in the end maintaining the two campaigns was a very valuable thing.
Andy Wigmore
They were complementary.
Chair
When you were discussing with Cambridge Analytica—all the work we have done looking at the way they work so far, obviously AggregateIQ were one of their key partners, they had worked with them consistently from the beginning of 2014 through to the start of the regulated period for the referendum itself—did they suggest bringing AIQ in to work with them on the campaign if they were hired by you?
Arron Banks
It is not something I had heard of.
Andy Wigmore
Me neither.
Chair
The key service that AIQ provided, they created various tools that help take the different data elements and can turn them into the datasets that can be used for targeting. That would seem to be a skill that Cambridge Analytica brought in from them and, therefore, I wondered who would have done that if they had worked for you.
Arron Banks
That was very much my point on Alexander Nix. I think they were huge marketing people that claimed to do all sorts of things, but what they were was an ad agency. It is not uncommon, is it, for people to offer these kinds of services? But I think, as we saw with the Channel 4 exposé, he made all sorts of claims of what his company could do. Whether it transpired it did or not, I do not know. I got the definite feeling that they were a kind of ad agency that had surrounded this mystique around them.
Andy Wigmore
This idea that you can hypnotise people is rubbish.
Chair
Obviously, a key part of the way they work seems to be psychographics, psychological profiling. Alexander Nix had spoken throughout 2016 at various conferences and afterwards about psychographics being one of the additional things that they bring and also their ability to analyse. Obviously you have data, you have insurance data that you can work with, but did he talk—
Andy Wigmore
We never used the insurance data. It is nothing to do with insurance. We never touched insurance data.
Chair
Okay.
Arron Banks
What I will say is that we had a team of people that worked specifically on creative advertising. I am sure you are all familiar with some of our work; some people may not like it. But in terms of the actual stuff we were putting out, we did our own sort of micro-messaging. I will give you an example: we put out a tile that was targeted at Green voters, which is not something you would think would have any traction. Then we looked at, let’s say for instance, poor African countries that cannot export their goods into the UK, so what we would do is target individual groups. We did that. We did not use this kind of mythical data to do it.
Chair
On the pitch documents, the sort of phase 1 document that Brittany published, there are three core elements to that. [Interruption.] Sorry, I don’t know who took the photograph, but we had this problem last week. Just to say that no photographs are allowed to be taken in the room, so hopefully that went off by accident, but can we make sure there are no other photographs taken? There are three elements in that phase 1 document. There is information coming from UKIP, there is data that has been gathered by Leave.EU, and there is also then information from Eldon Insurance. In their presentation to you, what were they suggesting you did?
Arron Banks
I think the sequence of events there was I went to the meeting and I wore several different hats, because you don’t disconnect your different businesses and the things you are doing, you really don’t. Effectively what happened was, when they started talking about how you psychologically profile, how you look for a niche customer, immediately in my head, the kind of process, insurance is all about how you target your product to the person you want to target it to. The three things that were of interest to me were: obviously, the referendum campaign, my insurance business—could they offer services that were along those sorts of lines?—and thirdly, with the UKIP hat on, would it be a useful messaging tool for UKIP? I can see why you would think there would be a conflict, but there really isn’t.
Chair
I suppose it is one of the things, depending on how you manage that situation, there could be a conflict. That is one question that arises.
Arron Banks
Yes, it is important to manage conflicts.
Chair
Yes, and to separate those different roles because, clearly, it would be a matter of interest if company insurance data was being used for political targeting.
Arron Banks
Exactly, but the point I am making is that we are now sitting around the Committee with a lot of hindsight here. We were just having a casual conversation with this company and then they almost came out and said, “Well, these are the three areas we can look at.” The fact of the matter is we have to be very careful that, in examining all this, we don’t jump from one conclusion that, “You had a discussion about it,” to, “It happened,” because all three of the things you have talked about did not happen. It is a bit like even with the gold mine stuff, which I am sure we are going to come on to. There is a definition between having a meeting with somebody and passing it on to someone and it not going anywhere. Are we really saying that we cannot have a conversation and then it has to be—this is the whole Guardian thing—that if I meet you for a glass of wine, there must be some dreadful conspiracy?
Andy Wigmore
Or if you go to a football match.
Arron Banks
Yes, or a football match, but there has been no actual definitive evidence of anything, not one shred of evidence. That is the thing that I find frustrating.
Chair
That is why I chose my words carefully in asking the question, asking about what they pitched to you, what they proposed and asked you to clarify the situation.
Andy Wigmore
If you were them, Mr Chairman, you had an opportunity—and remember the timing of this as well; the referendum had not even been called. Everyone was still thinking, “Is it going to happen? Is Cameron going to come back with a deal?” No one really knew. When you are a company like them and you are pitching to a businessman, you are thinking, “What can I get out of him? Yes, there is a referendum, there is possibly work for his insurance company,” so from their perspective, you can see why they were—
Arron Banks
Look, I understand you worked for Saatchi & Saatchi. I am sure you made plenty of prospective pitches to clients on how, “You need the services of Saatchi & Saatchi.” That is how business works.
Chair
It was a simpler time then.
Arron Banks
Of course, yes, and probably a more enjoyable time.
Chair
But obviously the way they pitched it to you was they said in their document, “Cambridge Analytica believes that the integration of several different projects will reduce costs.” When they are talking about integration of projects, are they looking at there are three potential strands of work that can be managed separately but by one team, or are they saying you have three projects that could become one project?
Arron Banks
I think anyone involved in politics knows it all starts getting very confusing very quickly. From our point of view, what we have said is we have had some initial discussions with Cambridge Analytica; we did not take up their services. I am struggling a bit with the line of questioning, because we did not go ahead with these things.
Chair
Why did you take such great exception to what Alexander Nix said when he first appeared in front of the Committee about his relationship to you?
Arron Banks
I felt a bit sorry for him on the second outing, I have to say, but I think—
Chair
On the first outing you were quite—
Arron Banks
If you could just remind me again of what he said.
Chair
We asked him about the fact that, Andy Wigmore, you said on Twitter that you had brought in Cambridge Analytica to work and basically what a good decision that had been. You talk about it in “Bad Boys of Brexit” as well, about hiring Cambridge Analytica. You clarified what you meant by that, but he seemed very keen to distance himself completely from that period and you seemed to take considerable exception to that.
Arron Banks
One thing that is clear is when you are telling the truth, it is much easier to tell it than trying to torture yourself into all sorts of knots. One of the issues I had with them was at one point the verbal offer they made to say, “If you pay us £1 million upfront, we will raise £5 million,” and it struck me at that time. That is when it really clicked that it was a bit of a fraud. I think subsequent conversations and discussions you have with that show a lot of that as well. He himself, did he not say that he made stuff up in front of clients?
Chair
Lied, I think he said.
Arron Banks
Did he say he lied?
Chair
He said he lied, yes.
Arron Banks
Okay, he lied. That for me was a strong indication that this was an ad agency that basically was just over-playing its hand. That is probably why I was pretty angry with him, but subsequently I felt a little sorry for him in the second meeting.
Christian Matheson
Gentlemen, good morning. When Cambridge Analytica was pitching to you, did you give Cambridge Analytica any data?
Arron Banks
The only data that was ever sent to Cambridge Analytica was some UKIP data from them, because they wanted to do an exercise from Cambridge Analytica. I understand that they did some initial scoping work, they then whacked in a bill for £39,000, I think.
Christian Matheson
£41,000.
Arron Banks
How much?
Christian Matheson
£41,500. They whacked in the invoice anyway, go on.
Arron Banks
Whether the invoice is £39,000 or £41,000 seems to me neither here nor there. It is an irrelevance. The point is they put this invoice in, which UKIP said, “No, you are meant to be doing a scoping exercise.” I think they approached me to pay it and I said, “Not on your life.”
Christian Matheson
Did you give UKIP any data?
Arron Banks
No. That was UKIP data they sent.
Christian Matheson
Obviously, Mr Banks, you made your name, in a sense, through UKIP as being a UKIP donor and that is how you came to public prominence.
Arron Banks
Yes.
Christian Matheson
How do you demarcate your role within UKIP at that time as opposed to your role as it became with Leave.EU?
Arron Banks
I never had a role in UKIP.
Andy Wigmore
Some of them didn’t like you very much, did they?
Arron Banks
Most of them didn’t like me very much. We wanted to try to professionalise the party and that was something that was going to prove extremely difficult to do. I had no role with UKIP, but I donated some money.
Christian Matheson
But you were a donor to them.
Arron Banks
Yes.
Christian Matheson
Other than being a donor, did you ever sit down and discuss strategy with them?
Arron Banks
In my job we talk strategy all the time.
Christian Matheson
Let me just follow on—
Arron Banks
Do politicians not do that?
Christian Matheson
Yes, I would hope so.
Arron Banks
Sometimes the strategy works spectacularly, sometimes it does not.
Christian Matheson
We have several explanations over this relationship with Cambridge Analytica, I think originally in October in the book you said, “We have hired Cambridge Analytic,” as the Chairman just referred to.
Arron Banks
To clarify that, what had happened was we did put them into the designation document for the Go movement. I know this gets horrendously complex, but you started off with the No campaign and then the referendum people changed the name of the referendum from Leave to Remain, so the name No.EU had to go. Then it became Leave.EU, and then effectively we teamed up with a number of other campaign groups to put in an application for the Go movement. When we said we hired Cambridge Analytica, maybe a better choice of words could have been “deployed” there. The fact was we did not hide it; we put it in the designation document and said, “If we win the designation, we will use Cambridge Analytica.” Did we hire them? Clearly not, because we did not pay them or sign a contract. I would agree that that choice of word could have been better.
Christian Matheson
I think you tweeted, Mr Banks, “We made no secret of using Cambridge Analytica. We created a huge social media artificial intelligence and won it for Leave”. That was in January. Mr Wigmore, I think you then told The Observer, “They—Cambridge Analytica—were happy to help because Nigel is a good friend of the Mercers and Mercer introduced them to us. He said, ‘Here’s this company we think may be useful to you’. What they were trying to do in the US and what we were trying to do had massive parallels”.
Arron Banks
I think Mercer and Bannon were obviously very close. We did meet Bannon and we make no secret of that.
Andy Wigmore
We never met Mercer.
Christian Matheson
We then move on with the relationship with Cambridge Analytica. Again, I think this is you, Mr Wigmore, “Cambridge Analytica did no work for us formally and, if they had, it would have been way before you had to report expenditure”. I think that is what you were getting at before, “We never employed Cambridge Analytica and they never gave us anything in kind.” Then we have, “Cambridge Analytica provided initial help and guidance to the Leave.EU campaign, which then went on to develop its own artificial intelligence analysis methodology. The AI machine learning was developed in Bristol by 20 mathematicians and actuaries with input from Cambridge Analytica at the very beginning and then executed by Goddard Gunster”. Now we have come to the point where Cambridge Analytica is simply an ad agency.
Arron Banks
It is.
Christian Matheson
In the words of, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” is that your final answer or is it—
Arron Banks
Can I phone a friend?
Christian Matheson
Very good. Is this now the definitive version of your—
Andy Wigmore
To be honest, there is probably a bit of boastfulness. I am an agent provocateur. My job is to spin, and you are familiar with all that. I would be guilty of being provocative, an agent provocateur, slightly exaggerating in the message quite often. I am guilty of doing that, absolutely, but the truth is, and the reality is, the mechanics of actually what happened we put out in a document. It was not something that we were trying to hide. You could have read it. Did we use Cambridge Analytica for the pitch? Absolutely. Did they do some work to get to that pitch? Of course they did; they had to, because if we had won, it wouldn’t have been kind of like, “Right, now plan.” They had to do a certain amount of planning just in case we won. There was a lot of that groundwork that had to take place. That is just a reality.
Arron Banks
Using the agent provocateur, we were a disruptive campaign. We certainly were not above leading journalists up the country path, making fun of them, and the same with politicians. In the same way I refer back to: if you do manage to get Dominic Cummings to the stand eventually, the idea that there were astrophysicists in California working in some skunkworks for Vote Leave scraping Google data is fantastical. That is something that Dan Hannan said. I think you have to take that with a slight pinch of salt, because we were running a campaign deliberately aimed at making fun of people, pushing them in certain directions, a shunter.
Andy Wigmore
We were outsiders. When we started, I think our first lunch was with Mr Pickard there. He will tell you that he did not have a clue who we were. No one had a clue who we were, apart from perhaps that Mr Banks had given a lot of money to Nigel Farage in UKIP. But to try to get a share of voice and try to create a movement and try to create a noise, you have to do certain things to get attention.
Christian Matheson
In the context of this inquiry, does that include perhaps using fake news to shake people up?
Andy Wigmore
What is fake news? With great respect, every politician uses the best-placed position of a situation to try to create the best environment for someone to write about it. If that is fake news, then that is what we did. Fake news can come in many forms, if you want to examine it like that.
Arron Banks
I would say, Chris, that Parliament itself is the biggest source of fake news in the entire country.
Christian Matheson
I hope I could disagree with you on that one.
Arron Banks
Straight after this meeting you will be at lunch with a journalist from The Guardian quaffing a glass of Chablis and spinning it the way you want to spin it.
Christian Matheson
If only that was the case. Did Goddard Gunster work with any of the data that had been produced by Cambridge Analytica?
Andy Wigmore
No, Goddard Gunster does not do data. How they operate is to work out what is the best way of placing messages in certain places. That is not about data. That is much more about marketing and looking at data, analysing data that you have to hand. That is how they operate. The United States is very different because of the way that campaigns work and what you can do with negative advertising, positive advertising. You can do all of that.
Arron Banks
If I look at it from our perspective, when we first started the campaign, we look at all of the advantage the Remain had, they outspent us 2:1; they had the civil service working for them; they sent a leaflet to everybody in the country; they got the IMF; they got President Obama; they had the Government working; they had every possible advantage to win this referendum. They ran a lousy campaign, threatening people. When we started our campaign, we realised that, to get a share of the voice, what we had to do is be slightly alternative, but tease journalists. They are the cleverest, stupidest people on earth, because they are clever but, also, they really want to believe some of this stuff. We were not above using alternative methods to punch home our message or lead people up the garden path if we had to.
Andy Wigmore
But also the piece we got right from the beginning was, “Remember, referenda are not about facts. It is about emotion and you have to tap into that emotion. It does not matter what facts you throw out. It is white noise to people because people are voting on something they believe and feel emotionally.”
Christian Matheson
Who gave you that advice?
Andy Wigmore
Goddard Gunster. They had successful referenda right across the United States.
Arron Banks
They had a 93% hit rate in America. If we go back to what I was saying, you had the emergency austerity budget, “Everyone will be £4,000 worse off, and there will be 500,000 job losses on the day the referendum starts.” If you think about it, the Leave campaign was outgunned in every possible way. You had the battleship of a campaign, but you chose the wrong strategy. The reason you did that was you did not understand the underlying issues that were driving the Brexit referendum. When you look at it, I think we did understand the issues better and, therefore, we tailored our campaign to achieve those goals.
Christian Matheson
Let me ask you one more question. We talked about these astrophysicists in California.
Arron Banks
Tim Shipman does.
Christian Matheson
Yes, but you talk about Bristol; you have 20 mathematicians and actuaries. Who were they? Where did you get them from?
Arron Banks
That is slightly conflated, that we do have an artificial intelligence team and big data analytics working on our insurance business and none of them were deployed in the referendum campaign.
Christian Matheson
There were actuaries. I think it was you, Mr Wigmore: “The AI machine learning was developed in Bristol by 20 mathematicians and actuaries with input from Cambridge Analytica”. Those were from your insurance business?
Arron Banks
I think, in the words of Alexander Nix, he probably slightly spun it.
Andy Wigmore
A slight exaggeration. I know how the insurance company operates. If my numbers are really correct, there might have been 15, but they do have people that look at this stuff. As an insurer you have to, but they were not connected with the referendum whatsoever.
Christian Matheson
These actuaries, where did you get them from?
Andy Wigmore
They worked for the insurance business.
Arron Banks
No, hold on, sorry—
Christian Matheson
No, hang on, fellows, hang on; gentlemen, sorry—
Arron Banks
“Fellows” is all right. Christian Matheson—either they were working for the insurance business or they were not connected to the insurance business, but you cannot have both.
Arron Banks
I am just saying that there were not people on artificial intelligence and big data analytics working on the referendum. It was conflated in the same way that Dan Hannan said that the astrophysicists were working on the west coast of California.
Christian Matheson
Were these actuaries employed by the insurance business?
Arron Banks
They did not work on the referendum. I do not know how else I can plainly put it.
Christian Matheson
So what Mr Wigmore said here, “were developed in Bristol by 20 mathematicians and actuaries” isn’t correct?
Andy Wigmore
No.
Rebecca Pow
Apologies, Chairman, and gentlemen for coming in late. Thank you for coming to the Committee. I want to just look at some of your myriad businesses, Mr Banks. For anyone on the outside, this is a complicated arrangement of businesses and you have indeed, I believe, many names as well. Might you just start off by explaining your role with ICS Risk Solutions?
Arron Banks
It is a holding company that owns an insurance business.
Rebecca Pow
Is it the heart of your finances, because you have many different companies?
Arron Banks
Yes. I have to say, first of all, I have international businesses. I do have quite a complex business structure and I know that it is difficult for some MPs to perhaps grasp the complexity of a financial group of companies and how it interacts, but the facts of the matter are it is quite a big insurance business, it employs over 1,000 people.
Rebecca Pow
You are talking about GoSkippy?
Arron Banks
No, hold on. If you went into the accounts of Aviva or any insurance company in this country, you could equally say, “This is a complex web of subsidiaries and different companies.” It is an insurance business and, by definition, insurance businesses have lots of connected companies.
Rebecca Pow
To be clear then for us MPs who don’t understand the complexities of 20 businesses, could you clearly outline—I did run my own business, but it was very small—
Arron Banks
What sort of business was that? Did you work with Mr Collins?
Rebecca Pow
ICS Risk Solutions. Can you just explain where that comes in, though? Is it the holding company for Eldon Insurance and the insurer behind GoSkippy, just so that we have that all clear?
Arron Banks
Off the top of my head, you have a number of ICSs. There is more than one ICS. You would have to be very specific and I would have to go back and check. I mean, even to the point where if you said to me, “Do you know every single company and how it interacts with every company?”, it is probably unlikely I can tell you that. ICS, if it is the right ICS, is the ultimate holding company of Eldon Insurance, which is GoSkippy is one of the brands that operates under Eldon Insurance.
Rebecca Pow
Thank you. Is it true that ICS Risk Solutions paid over £77 million since 2015 to prop up another of your companies called Southern Rock, which is an underwriting arm in Gibraltar?
Arron Banks
You are saying—
Rebecca Pow
I am asking you just to be clear.
Arron Banks
No, I want to clarify. I want to be clear, you are saying a company I own called ICS is propping up another company I own?
Rebecca Pow
This is what we are led to believe. I am just asking you if this true.
Arron Banks
But I own both companies.
Rebecca Pow
Yes, but I believe that Southern Rock was insolvent, so you have been propping it up with £77 million.
Arron Banks
That is not correct.
Andy Wigmore
How do you work that one out?
Arron Banks
How do you work that one out? If it was insolvent, it would not be allowed to trade, would it?
Rebecca Pow
This is a good question. That is what I am asking you, because this is what we are led to believe.
Arron Banks
It’s a good question? Well, it is a ridiculous question. If an insurance company is insolvent, it loses its licence, it cannot trade.
Andy Wigmore
Instantly.
Arron Banks
Instantly. What you are really saying is that ICS Holdings, which I own, lent some money to another company I own, is that what you are saying?
Rebecca Pow
I am led to believe that it was after regulators found that that business was trading while technically insolvent.
Arron Banks
We put in place with the regulators what is called a restoration plan. It is quite normal in insurance. Aviva and Direct Line in the same year announced £1 billion losses in the UK motor market. We were asked—or not asked, we were required—to put more capital into the insurance business, along with the entire UK insurance industry, by the way, which had to all put money into their insurance companies. That money came from another company I owned. I am struggling to see what the killer question is here.
Rebecca Pow
It is not supposed to be a killer question.
Arron Banks
I think it is, isn’t it?
Rebecca Pow
I am just trying to get some clarity. Companies House has asked you to publish the accounts of ICS Risk Solutions, has it not, in order to get some clarity on all of these things?
Arron Banks
No, it has not asked us to. If you are giving me new information that I have not hitherto received, I do not know, but we have not been asked to do that. By the way, we file all of our accounts with all of the different company registrations. Of course we do, we are a licensed insurance company.
Rebecca Pow
Fine, thank you.
Arron Banks
Can I return to the point of the £77 million into Southern Rock? It was money that went from one company I own to another company I owned, so if you look at someone like Aviva, you look at someone like Direct Line, they would have had a subsidiary that trades and because of widespread losses in the UK motor market, virtually every UK insurance company had to put more capital into their insurance companies. I am struggling here.
Chair
Just to clarify, the answer to the question seems to be there was a payment from the balance sheet of one company to the other and for that amount of money.
Arron Banks
Correct, yes. Obviously it is just: where did the £77 million come from? I will answer that for you before you get to the question, if that is the question.
Rebecca Pow
You tell me. I am assuming it came from ICS Risk Solutions.
Arron Banks
Or from Russia.
Rebecca Pow
Maybe it came from somewhere else. We will get to that in a minute. We have not come to Russia yet.
Arron Banks
Siberian gold mines. No, no, no; so, effectively the deal that was done, in fact when you mentioned it went from one balance sheet to another, in fact the deal was that the insurance broker at the end of that transaction, Eldon, sold some of its forward income on the sale of policies back to the insurance company, so there was not £77 million of cash that just went “bosh” into a bucket. It was a structured deal over four years, where the income was paid in month by month in accordance with the deal we did with the regulator. There was no lump sum payment of £77 million going in.
Rebecca Pow
Can we move on to a company called Rock Services Limited? Can you explain that involvement and where that comes in?
Arron Banks
Rock Services is a UK company that provides a treasury facility around the group.
Rebecca Pow
It does what? It provides a—
Arron Banks
A treasury service to various different things.
Rebecca Pow
Funding?
Arron Banks
This is where a lot of misunderstanding has come in. For instance, The Guardian gloriously wrote an article saying that we had a turnover of £21 million and administrative expenses of £19.8 million. That was the payroll, so it settles group-wide all of the salaries every month. It pays reinsurers and it pays a whole host of suppliers. It is a kind of service company that sort of settles bills, if you like.
Rebecca Pow
Did it settle bills or give money or loans to Better for the Country Limited, which I believe is another of your companies?
Arron Banks
Yes, this is disclosed in the Electoral Commission filing. When Better for the Country, we lent money across to that, the Rock Services lent—sorry, I lent the money to the company, but the money was delivered by Rock Services.
Rebecca Pow
Rock Services were not identified as a loan provider on Leave.EU’s return to the Electoral Commission, because you chose to do it through Better for the Country?
Arron Banks
I think you may have missed the Chairman’s opening comments, because we obviously do not approve of the Electoral Commission’s interpretation of all of this and, at 9.00 am today, we filed an appeal in the courts against all of the findings of the Electoral Commission, so we are straying into territory that is—
Chair
Rebecca was not here at the very beginning. Because of the appeal that has been lodged, those matters need to be considered sub judice, so we are not going to pursue questions on that area.
Rebecca Pow
Am I allowed to ask this, then? Why did you transfer money from Rock Services to Better for the Country, or we are not able to go into those questions now?
Arron Banks
No, I will cover it, although obviously our appeal against the Electoral Commission findings has been lodged today. Effectively, the loan agreement was between Better for the Country and me, okay? As we just discussed, Rock Services is a treasury function, it just delivers the cash. It is just a service company. The actual loan came from another one of my companies that was delivered in. From my perspective, I am a UK taxpayer. I have made the loan out of my own funds or company funds to Better for the Country. That is what was disclosed to the Electoral Commission. They say in their actual finding that, on the loan, I wasn’t wholly untransparent. Actually, if you take the opposite of what is not wholly untransparent, it means it was transparent. They say that I should have said that the money came from Rock Services, whereas it said it came from me. Now, I am sorry, but usually it is the other way around. It is people trying to hide behind companies, not say who it is. This is where the money came from. Can I just say, I think because of the legal action—and this is part of the legal action with the Electoral Commission—all of the documents are available, or should be shortly, in our submission to the court, where we are basically challenging the fairness of that hearing or those findings.
Chair
I think we will probably leave it there on that for now. Are there any other questions you had?
Rebecca Pow
It was just a general observation that all these different companies and names and tortuous, complicated arrangements that people now seem to be trying to unravel, journalists or whoever, suggest that you do have something to hide in all of this that might somehow have some connection to influencing politics across the world.
Arron Banks
I like to think I am an evil genius with a white cat that controls the whole of western democracy, but clearly that is nonsense. You keep mentioning different names. This is another Guardian wonderful piece of fake news where they have been through every file that has been made to Companies House and Companies House, by the way, frequently make mistakes as I know to my cost. What The Guardian said was, “There are seven different versions of Arron Banks at Companies House.” The most common misspelling is two As, Aaron and Arron, and so when you say “different names” it is my name. It is not like John Smith or Roger or Brendan O’Hara. It is literally my name on the documentation, so I cannot see where this comes from. Just as Arron Banks—or in one case it uses my middle name. It says Arron Fraser Banks or it uses Arron Fraser Andrew Banks and each one is counted as a separate version of my name. You have just brought it up because that is exactly how fake news works. You make a comment. You say, “You use seven different versions at Companies House”. It was just different versions of my name or my middle name and, by doing that, The Guardian writes a story, “He does not file his paperwork correctly. He does this” and then they write the story. Then the fake news gathers pace and you have repeated that I think two or three times. It is a complete non-story.
Rebecca Pow
This is why you are here today so that you can give your side.
Arron Banks
I jolly well am, aren’t I?
Rebecca Pow
Finally, can you be quite clear that any money from your overseas business interests has never formed part of your political donations?
Arron Banks
No.
Rebecca Pow
You can’t be clear.
Arron Banks
I can be clear. I live in south Gloucestershire. I pay my taxes in south Gloucestershire and I pay a shed-load of tax, probably more than the entire Committee put together, okay. I am not going to be lectured about my business interests. I structure everything legally. If you do not like the tax law pertaining to this country, get out there and change that. I would support that in many ways, and you can change the tax for Google, change it for Starbucks, change it for all these different structures but do not lecture me about offshore tax structures and complexities. You set the law. You make the law.
Rebecca Pow
Are you quite clear about what sources of finance are permitted in order to donate to political parties or campaigns?
Arron Banks
I am crystal clear.
Rebecca Pow
So we will not find anything untoward?
Arron Banks
No, and I am frankly sick and tired of this. The reason I went into the referendum was because I have a different version of what the future of this country is. I respect your right to disagree with that. I know that you are all Remainers; I think. All Remainers, hands up. Yes, I think so. You have a vested interest in trying to discredit the Brexit campaigning. When I look at the fact that you have not called any witnesses from the Remain campaign to hammer them, when I am sitting here you have George Osbourne, he is editor of The Evening Standard. If he did not have lunch with or go to the hospitality of Putin’s first man in Russia, he is certainly working for Putin’s second man. This is the guy that ran the campaign, so I am just glad to get it off my chest.
Chair
With this inquiry, what we have been looking at is the role of data targeting and people made allegations about Leave.EU and Vote Leave as a consequence of what we were doing and that is why—if similar allegations had been about Britain Stronger in Europe or Conservatives In, we would be equally asking them the same questions.
Arron Banks
But the guy leading the Remain campaign is working for a Putin oligarch in London. If you cannot see that there are some double standards being applied here, I don’t know.
Ian C. Lucas
Mr Banks, before July 2011, was Southern Rock investigated by the Gibraltar Finance Services Committee?
Arron Banks
No, I am now not going to answer any more questions on the insurance business. I have covered it with—is it Rebecca? You can read what you like from that, but I have given the explanation to a pretty full list of questions.
Ian C. Lucas
I just want to know, is that the case? Why don’t you answer the question?
Arron Banks
I have given you an answer.
Ian C. Lucas
You have not given me answer. You are avoiding.
Arron Banks
I have said, I have answered the question.
Ian C. Lucas
You are not answering a straight question.
Arron Banks
I have answered the questions on my financial affairs. I am not going to answer any more questions.
Ian C. Lucas
Are you going to answer any questions about your financial affairs?
Arron Banks
I just have, in full.
Ian C. Lucas
I am asking you another question about your financial affairs.
Arron Banks
Well, you can ask away. I am not going to answer any more questions on that.
Ian C. Lucas
I just want to be clear, so you are—
Andy Wigmore
What relevance has this to do with fake news?
Ian C. Lucas
I am speaking to Mr Banks.
Andy Wigmore
I don’t care. I am speaking as well. What relevance has this to do with the referendum and fake news? What relevance has it go to do with it?
Chair
Order. Sorry, if we just bring the session to order. I don’t propose that we keep going over ground that has already been answered. The specific point that Mr Lucas has raised was not covered before. I would be grateful if you could answer that, even if it is just “yes” or “no” and then we can move on.
Arron Banks
I have said I am not going to answer it and I have answered all the—
Ian C. Lucas
Okay. I am going to ask the question. I am going to ask the next question—
Arron Banks
Well, hold on a second.
Ian C. Lucas
I am going to ask the next question and the next question is—
Arron Banks
What has this to do with the referendum and fake news? Q3565 Ian C. Lucas—the Gibraltar Financial Services Committee discovered that the company had been trading while technically insolvent for three years. Is that correct?
Arron Banks
I am sorry that is just not correct.
Ian C. Lucas
It is not correct?
Arron Banks
No.
Andy Wigmore
Where did you get that?
Arron Banks
That is not how insurance companies work, okay.
Ian C. Lucas
You deny that the Gibraltar Financial Services Committee found that the company had been trading insolvent for three years.
Arron Banks
It had not been trading insolvently for three years. If it had been, the regulator would not have allowed it to. This is what happens. You have parliamentary privilege. You can make a full statement; and this is exactly how things start. How on earth can an insurance company trade insolvently for three years? You are using Parliament—
Chair
I think this question on the solvency of the business and the transfer of cash to the business has been covered now, unless in fact there is more you want to say about it.
Arron Banks
Damian, I am sorry but this Committee is meant to be investigating fake news and the role of it in politics. What Mr Lucas is doing is using parliamentary privilege to make a reckless allegation, which he knows is going to be reported elsewhere, and that is why he is doing it and, frankly, it is pretty disgraceful.
Ian C. Lucas
Mr Banks, all I am doing is asking you questions. You are not answering.
Arron Banks
No, you are not. No, you are not.
Chair
The question has now been asked. You have answered it, and I think we should now move on to the other issues we want to cover.
Ian C. Lucas
Is it correct that you do not currently have FCA approval to carry out an operational executive role in Eldon Insurance Services?
Arron Banks
What is this? If you just have another list of questions—
Ian C. Lucas
Is that correct?
Arron Banks
Are you the MP that got drunk in the House of Commons and harassed a woman and got drunk on a karaoke evening?
Ian C. Lucas
No.
Arron Banks
Good, but one of the Committee is. I just don’t know who. What do you want me to do? Do we want to sit here and throw bread rolls at each other?
Ian C. Lucas
Mr Banks, I think this is a serious issue.
Arron Banks
Why?
Andy Wigmore
Why are you asking a question that is as clear as day? Go and check with the FCA. It will tell you.
Arron Banks
What has this got to do—
Ian C. Lucas
Why does he not answer the question?
Arron Banks
Well, I am asking you, what has this to do with fake news and the question of political interference?
Ian C. Lucas
Because it is about money. It is about money and it is about where the funding came from for an individual who made substantial donations to a hugely important referendum campaign in the UK. That is why it is relevant.
Arron Banks
For a start, an insurance company cannot be technically insolvent for three years.
Ian C. Lucas
You keep saying that, but it cannot be—
Arron Banks
As a point of fact that cannot be the case.
Ian C. Lucas
You keep saying that, but I cannot—
Arron Banks
Since you have asked that—
Ian C. Lucas
That is why I am referring—that is why I asked you the question. Arron Banks—the reason I am slightly vexed about it was because I answered the question to Ms Pow, in that the entire UK motor insurance industry suffered—I think it was—a £2.5 billion loss at that time, so what happens in insurance companies is not that they are insolvent. It is what is called the loss ratio that sits at the heart of the business that is on the claims you pay, versus the premium you take in gets reassessed. When it is reassessed then they will say, “There is a shortfall of X and, therefore, you need to inject more money into that company to continue trading.” What we did, through the transaction that you brought up, was inject more money into the insurance company for it to continue to trade normally, as it should have done. Do you think the regulator is going allow a company that has been insolvent to continue on trading? If you thought about your question, it might go back to the question of: do MPs understand the complexity of businesses? The fact of the matter is, when we identified what had to be injected in, we injected it—in along with, I might add, most of the UK insurance industry. I will tell you why it happened. It happened because of personal injury claims that were coming out of the woodwork, because of accident management companies and, essentially, what you had was a whole scandal around lawyers making cash for crash claims, and then basically ringing people in industrial numbers and generating personal injury claims that subsequently had to be recognised by the insurance company. When that occurred we did the right thing. We injected the money in from our holding company and we carried on. I don’t know if that answers your question.
Ian C. Lucas
I would still like you to tell me whether you had FCA approval to carry out an operational executive role at Eldon Insurance Services.
Arron Banks
I don’t have an operational role within my insurance companies.
Ian C. Lucas
So you do not have authority.
Arron Banks
I don’t have an operational role within my insurance business. I own it. I have a chief executive.
Ian C. Lucas
Thank you for answering my question.
Arron Banks
Oh, is that what you do? You asked the question, “Do you have FCA approval?” and then when I try to answer the question you say, “No” because that is the little sound bite you want.
Chair
Mr Banks answered the question fully. If there is more you want to add then you are more than welcome to.
Arron Banks
The only reason you have asked these questions is to try to create some sort of shadiness around the whole thing.
Ian C. Lucas
Mr Banks, all I am trying to do is follow the facts.
Arron Banks
What facts?
Ian C. Lucas
The fact that I just told you.
Arron Banks
What does this have to do with the referendum?
Ian C. Lucas
It has a lot to do with the referendum.
Arron Banks
Why? Because I am a UK taxpayer.
Ian C. Lucas
Because you are the biggest financial donor in British political history.
Arron Banks
Yes.
Ian C. Lucas
That is what it is to do with the referendum. That is why you are here.
Arron Banks
Yes, and that is what you hate more than any of the other facts.
Ian C. Lucas
No, it is not what I mean. It is not what I mean. I just want people to be open. I want people to be open and I want you to tell us the truth.
Arron Banks
I answered the question and then you went ahead and asked it again in a second one.
Ian C. Lucas
What do you think first attracted the Russian Embassy to Arron Banks, the biggest political donor in political history. Do you think it was anything to do with the fact that you were involved in the referendum campaign?
Arron Banks
No. Have we started on Russia now? Are we finished the—
Chair
I think we have to get into a routine where the questions are asked and the witnesses answer it, rather than just providing a commentary on the questions.
Ian C. Lucas
I did ask a question and he has not answered it.
Andy Wigmore
Why do we think the Kremlin were interested in us?
Ian C. Lucas
I asked why the Russian Embassy was interested in you.
Andy Wigmore
I will tell you why they were, because I asked to meet them. We met them at a UKIP conference. I was a diplomat and we thought it would be quite a nice thing to go and chat to them. Why? Because his wife is also Russian. She has never ever engaged much with the Russian diaspora, and we thought it would be nice to have a chat with him. I had met him and his people in the diplomatic community many times. You do. That is what you do, so it was not unusual when you meet somebody and say, “We would like to come and have a chat with the ambassador. It would be nice to see him.” There was no other reason. In fact we instigated, not the other way round.
Arron Banks
Ian, if the French Ambassador phoned you up this afternoon—it is possible, it may happen—and said—