THE News Letter and the Biggest Woe in the Country are on Féile’s case. Again. Both reported rather excitedly last week that the Charity Commissioner is considering reporting itself to its appeals body, for which a brief explanation is probably required.
Last year a victim of the Shankill bomb complained via My Cousin Binny to the Charity Commissioner about the Wolfe Tones concert in the Falls Park, and specifically about the ‘Ooh, ah, up the Ra’ business. Féile’s kind of used to this by now because every year various denizens of Loyal Ulster go after its funders in the wake of the last-night concert, but since that has always proved a fruitless exercise, it was decided to try another pressure point. And so Féile’s charity status was dragged into the equation.
Sadly, that proved to be another blind alley – the Commissioner recently wrote to Rumpole of the Failey to inform him and his client that Féile had “acted appropriately in accordance with charity law and in line with its purposes”. But he’s nothing if not persistent, the wee man, and so back to the Charity Commissioner he went, bemoaning the unfairness of the decision and recommending that the Commission refer itself to the appeal body the Charity Tribunal. We don’t know exactly what the Commission’s reaction to that was because it hasn’t been revealed, but we’re told it has agreed to consider the request.
So what does that mean? Why, it means precisely nothing. Or rather, it means precisely nothing in relation to the Commission’s ruling that Féile has no case to answer. What it does mean is that somebody asked the Commission to consider something, and that’s apparently a hook big and strong enough to hang another Féile story on.
Since we’re in the business of considering things, let’s consider this: Squinter can email the Charity Commission right now and ask it to consider a million things. He could contact the United Nations, or Translink, or FIFA, or the Moonies and ask them to consider this or that. He could contact NASA or the Russian Federation. And guess what? They’ll consider the requests. Maybe with a chortle, maybe seriously. They may say, ‘Catch yourself on’ they may say, ‘You know, we’ll do just that.’
But they’ll consider it. Just as the Charity Commission has agreed to consider doing what they’ve been asked by East Belfast’s favourite doorman wrangler.
In other words, asking the Charity Commission to punch itself in the face is not a story; it’s just a way of relighting the fire under a story that just went cold.
You want to talk money, lads?
SINN Féin’s electoral lead in the South just got even bigger.
The DUP has called for an inquiry into Sinn Féin’s funding North and South.
Squinter’s fairly sure that these two things are unconnected and that it’s a mere coincidence that the DUP is again concerned about Sinn Féin in the Republic at the same time as they moved closer to taking power in Dublin.
David Brooks MLA, the DUP’s spokesman on ‘US engagement’ (stop sniggering at the back), said: “Foreign donations are outlawed across all other parts of the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland, yet at least $50,000 was funnelled to Sinn Fein in advance of last year’s assembly election. Sinn Fein happily trumpet how their organisation in Northern Ireland is entirely separate from the party in the Republic when it comes to money.
“Sinn Fein not only takes a conveniently partitionist attitude to such donations, but there are serious questions about its wider finances.” Davy continued: “It is time that Sinn Fein’s finances were the subject of serious scrutiny on both sides of the border. There have been claims of financial irregularities amounting to ‘hundreds of thousands of euro’ within the Republic, whilst foreign donations are being used to influence politics in Northern Ireland.
“As a major property owner on the island of Ireland and the richest party, there needs to be transparency and openness about Sinn Féin finances.”
Now there are many things that the DUP is eminently qualified to comment on with the required degree of credibility. Bonfires, for example. The party has enjoyed and backed Eleventh Night boneys since its formation, even if very few boneys are to be found anywhere near the fine homes of senior party members. And flags. Not only does the DUP just love flags, it has an expertise on the subject unmatched anywhere else in Britain where the union jack flies – proudly in summer and shabbily in winter – from every loyal lamppost. (There isn’t anywhere else in Britain like that, but you get the point.) But when it comes to political moolah you’d think the largest unionist party would stay as quiet as Boris Johnson does when he’s asked how many kids he has.
Because, let’s be honest here, the past history of the party leadership and money management is a rather, ah, complicated one. If RHI, or cash for sash – sorry, ash – was a module in a university economics course it would be titled ‘Accessing the Trough’. And it’s hard to know whether the Red Sky housing contracts affair became a scandal because of the party’s “unwarranted and improper interference” in Housing Executive business, or the party’s savage treatment of whistleblower Jenny Palmer; or both.
But since we’re talking specifically about party funding here, it’s the party’s dark Brexit money that probably best illustrates why the party needs to go for a smoke break when the subject of political funding is brought up.
Two days before the EU referendum in 2016, a two-page pro-Brexit wraparound ad appeared in the Metro newspaper in London urging readers to ‘Take Back Control’. The ad was paid for by the DUP and cost just shy of £300,000 – over three times more than an entire DUP spend on a typical Assembly election.
300K: The DUP received a massive donation which enabled them to pay for this ad
The party refused to say at the time how much the ad cost (that was left to others to ferret out) and was similarly tight-lipped about why it would want to spend forty fortunes on an ad in a newspaper that doesn’t circulate in the North.
Turned out the ad money was part of a huge donation made to the party by a little-known anti-Scottish independence group – a donation in the neighbourhood of half a million quid, which as bounty-hunter Jack observed in Midnight Run, is not a bad neighbourhood. The source of the moolah was as difficult to establish as the source of the Nile and to call the trail complicated would be to do a grave disservice to the devilishly serpentine route the money took to reach the DUP account; so a précis from the annals of the Irish Times, the Daily Record and the BBC will have to suffice.
•The group that donated the money was of distinctly modest means.
•It was headed by a man shown by BBCNI Spotlight to have been involved in shipping illegal tyre waste to India and presenting fake documents which left a shipping company with an unpaid bill of over a million pounds.
• The same man has close business links to a member of the Saudi royal family who is also a former director of Saudi intelligence.
•An investment company was set up by the man, his Saudi colleague and a Dane named by Indian authorities in an investigation into a massive gun-running plot.
• The company run by the man, his Saudi colleague and the Dane signed an £80m contract with a Ukrainian company run by a German convicted of a massive food fraud.
Now, when they’ve happily sucked up donations from a crowd with a CV like that you’d think the DUP would be a little circumspect in pointing the finger at anyone on the issue of political funding. But then self-awareness has never been the party’s strong point.
