Two weeks ago, the Nerve published its first story in this series, in which we forensically examined how the pattern of Harborne’s donations closely tracked Farage and Johnson’s public statements about cryptocurrency policy reform, specifically so-called stablecoins. Harborne’s wealth derives in large part from Tether, a stablecoin.
This week, the Nerve’s new evidence shines a new light on the sequence of events that preceded Britain’s exit from the EU, and Harborne’s relationship with Farage and later Johnson.
But those relationships with Farage and Johnson are now a matter of both intense public interest and legal jeopardy. Mr Harborne’s lawyers, Schillings, repeatedly declined to answer any of our questions or requests for comment.
We are publishing these new revelations two weeks after Harborne filed a defamation claim in the High Court against a former leading member of Reform, Ben Habib.
In an interview last month with the YouTuber Maximilien Robespierre, Habib claimed that Harborne’s £5m gift to Farage had been part of a deal that saw the 2019 election “sewn up between Nigel Farage, Christopher Harborne and Boris Johnson”. He alleged that the election that led to Brexit was “a monetary deal” and that individual £1m payments were made to both Johnson and Farage to secure a Brexit pact.
Harborne did gift £1m to Johnson but not until three years later, in 2022, after Johnson had left office. There is no evidence to suggest any connection to Habib’s claim. It has also now been revealed that Farage received £5m from Harborne. Farage initially claimed it was to pay for a lifetime’s security but subsequently said it had been a “reward for campaigning for Brexit”. He denies Habib’s claim and wrote on X lastmonth that his lawyers had written to him to demand an apology. Neither Farage nor Johnson responded to our requests for comment.
We have carefully weighed the public interest but believe that fresh evidence raises new questions about the events of November 2019, contemporaneous reporting of a possible pact between Johnson and Farage, and the relevance of Harborne’s donations to Britain’s departure from the EU.
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Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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The transport secretary Mark Harper has been accused of “muddying the waters” by presenting misleading narratives in the rail dispute, on BBC Question Time last night.
When answering questions on resolving the rail strikes, Mark Harper attempted to shirk responsibility by referring to train drivers pay and unused ticket offices.
It comes as the RMT union smashed their latest mandate for strike action, meaning members working for 14 train operating companies could strike again over the next six months.
It is their third mandate in the National Rail Dispute, with the latest receiving a 91% yes vote.
Mick Lynch, RMT general secretary said the mandate sends a clear message to employers of the “huge anger” amongst rail workers.
‘Why are they treating their own staff worse than anyone else?’
The government has been accused of ‘punishing’ their own staff and ‘making an example’ of civil servants by the leader of the union for civil service workers.
In an ongoing dispute over pay, job losses and redundancy terms, civil servants with the union Prospect are on strike today for a second time in what is the largest industrial action the union has taken in over a decade.
Their members’ pay has declined by up to 26% in real terms since 2010, with civil servants on some of the worst pay settlements in the public sector, having been dealt a recent 4.5% pay offer by the government.
The union have called for a ‘serious pay offer’ that recognises the cost-of-living crisis that their members are facing.
The train ticket would’ve cost Sunak £30 return, yet he opted to travel by air, at a cost to the taxpayer in the region of £6,000.
The Tories would like you to believe that they care about climate change and the effective use of taxpayers’ money, yet their actions show the complete opposite.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is fond of taking helicopters and private jets for short trips and is now once more being slammed for using a taxpayer-funded helicopter to make a journey that would have taken little more than an hour on the train.
Sunak took a chopper to Southampton to attend a GP surgery and pharmacy to promote the government’s latest intervention to reduce the strain on GP practices.
According to train timetables, had the Prime Minister taken the 8:35am train from Waterloo he would have arrived in Southampton at 9:50am. That Sunak decided to fly to the port city and back via helicopter has led to some Tory MPs fearing that it will cement Sunak’s image as an out of touch Prime Minister.
The train ticket would’ve cost Sunak £30 return, yet he opted to travel by air, at a cost to the taxpayer in the region of £6,000.
One Tory MP told the Guardian: “Is it unfair to say that the weekend was about a powerful unelected individual who is unfeasibly wealthy and lacks the common touch … and King Charles III?”
‘The segment of concern gave a wholly biased account of the verdict in the trial of Donald Trump for sexual assault’
Ofcom has been sent a strongly worded letter from two leading Green Party politicians, calling for the media regulator to revoke the broadcasting licence given to GB News after the scandal hit channel was once again found to have breached broadcasting regulations.
Molly Scott Cato, Green Party Speaker on Economy and Finance and Councillor Jack Lenox, Parliamentary Candidate for Lancaster, have shared a picture of their letter on Twitter, with Lenox tweeting: “Jacob Rees-Mogg’s defence of Donald Trump’s sexual abuse is disgusting. And his brazen attempt to mislead the public is a grotesque abuse of our broadcasting regulations.
“Today @GreenPartyMolly and I have written to Ofcom asking them to revoke GB News’ broadcasting licence.”
Ardent Brexiteer Rees-Mogg has been slammed for his GB News broadcast on the Donald Trump sexual assault trial. Rees-Mogg emphasised that Trump had been found ‘not guilty of rape’, and also questioned the US legal system. Rees-Mogg was joined on the programme by Kari Lake, a top Republican and well-known 2020 Election denier, as well as Nigel Farage.
A jury found that Trump had sexually abused magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a New York department store in the 1990s. The jury also found Trump liable for defamation for calling the writer’s accusations “a hoax and a lie”.
Reacting to Rees-Mogg’s comments on Trump, James O’Brien tweeted: “When Owen Paterson broke Parliamentary rules, Jacob Rees-Mogg attacked the rules.
“When a jury decided Donald Trump was a sex offender, Jacob Rees-Mogg attacked trial by jury. There’s a pattern here.”
