Revealed: Arron Banks told campaigners ‘I have Nigel by the short and curlies financially’

Nigel Farage claimed at Ukip’s conference yesterday that all Eurosceptic groups were being brought together under the Leave.EU umbrella organisation, headed up by Ukip donor Arron Banks. However, the other Leave campaign, run by Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings, was notably absent and its representatives did not appear at the conference yesterday. Elliott’s Business for Britain group, which aims to give a voice to Eurosceptic businesses, was also not mentioned as part of the umbrella group.

When I asked Farage about this, he said ‘they don’t want to leave, they want to wait and see what the Prime Minister has come back with’. Banks also told Coffee House he had approached the other camp three times and they declined to join because they are waiting to see what the renegotiation brings back. A spokesman for Leave.EU says:

‘Arron was going to give them money and everything they wanted financially but [Matthew] Elliott wanted to run the show.