Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Posts Tagged ‘Nigel Farage

Major Donor to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Owns Russian Assets

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Major Donor to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Owns Russian Assets

We thank Councillor John Lyons (Dublin City, Artane-Whitehall) [Independent Left] for this story.

https://x.com/CllrJohnLyons

Major Donor to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Owns Russian Assets

Reform’s leader has been criticised in recent days for claiming the west provoked Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

By Adam Barnett and Sam Bright

Jun 26, 2024

One of the biggest donors to Nigel Farage’s anti-net zero Reform UK during the general election campaign has significant Russian business interests, DeSmog can report. 

Natural resources investor David Lilley donated £100,000 to Reform on 10 June – a week after Farage announced that he was returning as the party’s leader. Lilley’s donation was the third largest to Reform during the campaign so far. 

As revealed by The Mirror and Good Law Project in the former’s print edition, Lilley controls a series of companies that own 12,000 hectares of farmland in the Stavropol region of Russia, in the south west of the country, used to produce cereals and oilseeds. 

Lilley confirmed to DeSmog that he still owns this land, saying that “I have never made a secret of my assets in Russia.” He said that he had made no profit on these assets since February 2022 and that he had been prevented from selling them by the Russian state. 

Farage has come under fire in recent days for suggesting that Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was provoked by the west, and for calling on Ukraine to enter peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Good Law Project executive director Jolyon Maugham told DeSmog that Reform is “starting to feel a bit like Russia’s unofficial British Embassy.”

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Birds of a Feather Flock Together – Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson MP (DUP, East Antrim)

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There is more to this story than initially meets the eye. Much capitalist development is based on Ethnic Cleansing of original populations and the plantation of new non-indigenous populations – it happened in the United States of America (USA) and Australia – naming just two. It did not happen so brutally in Ireland – but British imperialism made a significant effort.

Links :
Plantation of Ulster
Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland – Wikipedia

The Northern province of Ulster was “planted” in the 1600’s, but the native Irish were not completely exterminated. Waves of native Irish emigrated – especially in the 19th century after a misnamed Famine (in reality a “Great Hunger” caused by British Imperialist Policy) drove millions of the native Irish to the four corners of the globe. These emigrants kept alive the idea of Irish freedom, and played a significant role in every attempt to rid Ireland of British rule.

The stubborn Irish “national question” remains on today’s agenda because of the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty which divided Ireland into 2 sectarian states. A key feature of extreme Irish Unionism is identification with plantation/ethnic cleansing forms of capitalism – and that goes a long way towards explaining Irish far-right Unionist sympathy for the present day attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Ukraine. We should situate recent pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine statements by the British far-right politician Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson within this framework :

Nigel Farage Endorses DUP Antrim MP’s Wilson and Paisley, Dumping a different extreme unionist, Jim Allister

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The Russian imperialist occupation of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk is ethnic cleansing capitalism in action – accompanied by child stealing and abuse similar to the behaviour of the Catholic Church in the 26 county bit of Ireland from the 1930’s to the 1990’s.

An excellent Ukrainian blog, Ukr-Taz, covers the story of Putin’s ethnic cleansing dreams in Ukraine, and Donald Trump’s enthusiastic support :

Trump on Putin’s “dream”

29 06 2024

For all that can be said about Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — including about the former’s dismal performance and about the boundless creativity of Trump’s fabrications on almost every topic under the sun — Trump’s curious note about Putin’s “dream” stood out to me:

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