Arron Banks

Arron Banks is a businessman who co-founded the Brightside insurance firms and runs Go Skippy.

He is also a UKIP donor, having previously donated to the Conservative Party.

Ukip defection

Banks was previously a Conservative Party donor but in October 2014 announced he would instead donate £1million to UKIP. He said he had switched because he agrees with UKIP's policies and agrees with their view that 'Europe is holding the UK back' as it's a 'closed shop for bankrupt countries'.

A spokesman for Nigel Farage said that Banks had funded the Chipping Sodbury office for the South Gloucestershire Conservatives 'to the tune of £250,000'. However, a Conservative spokesperson said the support was 'nothing like the order of magnitude' of sums claimed by UKIP and estimated that the donations were about £22,000.

Spat with Hague

Upon Bank's defection to UKIP, Conservative MP William Hague called him 'somebody we haven't heard of'. In response, Banks upped his donation from £100,000 to £1million, claiming he did not like being called Mr Nobody.

Attack website

Banks is funding, but not writing the stories, on an offensive website dedicated to attacking the three major parties, called LibLabCon. The website includes jokes about the treatment of religious people by the Conservatives and singles out half Nigerian Labour MP Chuka Umunna in another joke.

The Party have said the website is not linked to them, however it is funded by one of their main backers and policy chief, Tim Aker shared the website on Twitter saying, 'Now this is good'.

Tax avoidance argument

In the wake of the HSBC 2015 tax avoidance scandal, political satirist Armando Iannuci, on BBC's Question Time, accused Banks of being a tax avoider. He said:

'UKIP has Arron Banks donating a million pounds, and he has got a company in Belize. He is the director of a firm that had a turnover of £19.7m but paid £12,000 in corporation tax because £19.6m was actually an administrative expense.'

In reply, Banks wrote Iannuci an open letter denying the accusations and threatening to sue if an apology is not received:

'Apparently some Italian / Scottish comedian accused me of being a tax dodger ! Here was my Dear Mr Lanucci,

I understand you mentioned me on question time in connection with the use of Belizean/ overseas companies to reduce my tax bill including a company in Belize and a service company.

I do not own any companies in Belize so this comment is clearly defamatory.

I believe it is recycling an old guardian story which was incorrect - I have made charitable donations to the Belize children's hospital and hosted a function for them.

This was for a cancer charity.

Meanwhile the service company mentioned is in respect of mainly UK staff and expenses incurred and does not save any UK tax.

The company does not produce revenue. I have created over 5,000 local jobs in South Gloucestershire and donated over a million pounds to charity including, local churches, facilities for schools, scouts, cubs, cricket and hockey clubs and local sports clubs in the area.

I paid £2m pounds in tax , over the last two years - probably more than most Italians one imagines.

Particularly funny ones. I do not own any Belizean companies or seek to avoid UK tax via any device - I expect an apology within 7 days or proceedings will follow.

Best regards

Arron

Ps love the thick of it !'

Political donations

Recorded by the Electoral Commission:

Date	Name of donor	Amount	Donated to	Subsidiary (parties only)
01/01/2007	Arron F Banks	£20,000.00	Conservative Party	Northavon
05/05/2009	Arron F Banks	£5,000.00	Conservative Party	Thornbury and Yate