As the SKWAWKBOX reported on Monday, Nigel Farage has been complaining (video) about – and attempting to portray as Stalinist ‘punishment’ – an order from the EU to repay £80,000 in expenses he claimed for a member of staff.
This order relates to an investigation – broken as a worldwide exclusive by the this blog but subsequently reported by mainstream press – by the EU’s OLAF anti-fraud unit into alleged false claims by UKIP MEPs for the cost of staff who were actually engaged in UKIP activities in the UK, not as MEPs’ assistants.
UKIP insiders told the SKWAWKBOX that the £80,000 was just the beginning, so we asked OLAF whether the investigation into Farage and others was still ongoing.
OLAF’s press office replied that it cannot comment, to avoid the risk of prejudicing ongoing investigations and possible judicial proceedings:
We are not in a position to reply to your question. OLAF does not usually issue comments on cases it may or may not be treating. This is in order to protect the confidentiality of any possible investigations and of possible ensuing judicial proceedings, as well as to ensure respect for personal data and procedural rights..
It also took the unusual step of including a link at the end of its response to an article about the imprisonment of former UKIP MEP Ashley Mote as a result of an OLAF investigation into the diversion of €355,000 into private bank accounts:
Please see here an example of a case in which a former MEP was sentenced following an OLAF investigation: https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/media-corner/press-releases/former-mep-sentenced-5-years-prison-case-triggered-olaf-investigation_en
Of course, no conclusions can be drawn from an absence of confirmation, but it does seem likely that the investigation is ongoing – if it was concluded or non-existent you would expect an agency to be free to comment. The unsolicited inclusion of detail about the imprisonment of a former UKIP MEP is also a point of interest.
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I’m sure they’d let him serve any sentence in the UK 😉
“Reacting to [Mote’s] sentence, the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, said he was “disgusted and horrified” at the leniency of the sentence. If Mote had been jailed for more than one year, he would have lost his seat in the European Parliament, which could have been reassigned to another representative. Farage added that if “Mote had a shred of integrity left, he’d resign.” ”
Interesting precedent.
Did Ashley Mote ever pay any of those ill-gotten gains back?
Surely this can’t be the same Nigel Ferage who has an Opinion piece in today’s Daily Telegraph that blasts EU mandarins for spending large sums of money on what he considers to be “junkets” disguised as legitimate business trips.
However I am beginning to understand more when he says in his article “This is just the tip of the iceberg, or should I say the cherry on the cream cake …. “. He obviously speaks from his own considerable experience of EU funding.
THAT CONCERNING LOOK ON HIS FACE IS NOT MISSED!
HE SHOULD BE CONCERNED!
JUSTICE AND HONESTY WILL PREVAIL!
HOW THE MIGHTY FALL!