Brexit campaign leader Nigel Farage has called out billionaire open borders campaigner George Soros and his “reliable friends” for collusion on a grand scale.
Speaking in a debate on the Paradise Papers in the European Parliament, the UKIP MEP pointed out that the financier had funded the exposé.
“I say this at a time when the use of money and the influence it may have had on the Brexit result or the Trump election has reached a level of virtual hysteria,” he said.
“Just last week the Electoral Commission in the UK launched an investigation to find out whether the Leave campaign took offshore money or Russian money.
“This came about as a result of questions asked in the House of Commons by one Ben Bradshaw, somebody linked to an organisation called Open Society.
“I just wonder when we’re talking about offshore money, when we’re talking about political subversion, when we’re talking about collusion, I wonder whether we’re looking in the wrong place.
“And I say that because George Soros recently gave Open Society, his organisation, which of course campaigns for free movement of peoples and supports supranational structures like the European Union, he recently gave it 18 billion dollars.
“And his influence here, and in Brussels, is truly extraordinary.”
“Open Society boasts that they had 42 forty-two meetings last year with the European Commisision. They’ve even published a book of ‘reliable’ friends in the European Parliament and there are 226 names on that list — including yours, sir! I thought you’d find this interesting!” he told a heckling MEP.
“We even had last week [Guy] Verhofstadt lobbying on behalf of Mr. Soros, at the Conference of Presidents in a battle that is going on with Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary.”
“If we’re going to have a debate, and we’re going to talk about full political and financial transperency, well, let’s do it!
“So I shall be writing today to all 226 of you, asking some pretty fair questions:
“Have you ever received funds, directly or indirectly, from Open Society?
“How many of their events have you attended?
“Could you please give us a list of the meetings of all the representatives [you have met], including George Soros [himself]?”
“I think this parliament should now set up a special committee to look into all of this,” he concluded.
“And I say this because I fear we could be looking at the biggest level of international political collusion in history.”