Tuesday, 7 September 2010

7 Sept 10


Chapter 6 of Ashley Mote’s memoirs as an MEP

 

Off to the Serious Fraud Office


Just published on www.ashleymote.co.uk.

 

This explosive chapter includes much of the detailed evidence of financial malfeasance put to the British government and the EU in 2004, and which was withheld from the public domain at the time.  

This was to allow the Lord Chancellor, the Director of the Serious Fraud Office, the President of the 

EU’s Court of Auditors, and the Director General of OLAF, the EU’s fraud investigation unit, to respond 

in confidence.

 

They all failed to do so adequately, and the Lord Chancellor not at all. 

 

The DG of OLAF boasted he did not snoop on his friends.  The DG of the EU’s Court of Auditors claimed 

that the UK’s National Audit Office and the European Commission were responsible for combating fraud 

in the EU, which both immediately refuted. 

 

They all funked any direct responsibility for ensuring UK taxpayers’ funds were accounted for by Brussels 

and both the Court of Auditors and the European Commission pointed the finger at OLAF.  A threadbare merry-go-round of Alice in Wonderland proportions unravelled in disorder.

 

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, refused to answer any questions about the legal protection of 

public funds in the UK.  He simply ignored them.  Were they too difficult, or were the consequences 

not to the liking of the Blair government?

 

On 21st October 2004, Trafalgar Day, the European Commission’s former Chief Accountant, Marta Andreasen, and I visited the SFO to deliver two box files of evidence about institutionalised fraud 

and corruption at the heart of the European Union.  Less than three weeks later, with the boxes 

hardly opened, a dismissive letter rejected our evidence. 

 

Yet within a few days the EU’s Court of Auditors had publicly condemned the 2003 accounts, 

after which the EU Commissioner for the budget launched a vicious personal attack that even 

elicited support for me from the socialists.  Alice in Wonderland was alive and well.

 

Later, after two of my more provocative speeches in the parliament, both the Court of Auditors 

and the EU’s new Chief Accountant agreed to hold meetings with me and my advisors.  I was

 finally getting under their skin.

 

My criticisms of the EU’s financial management also started to bear interesting fruit elsewhere. 

I was approached by several new potential sources of information, some right inside the Commission

 at great risk to themselves.  This was getting serious.  The knives were out.  Others warned me to 

watch my back.

 

There was plenty of trouble elsewhere as well.  Kilroy-Silk walked out of UKIP.  Parliamentary 

approval of the new Commission ran into difficulties, as did its own plans to campaign for public 

support for the new Constitutional Treaty.  Confused signals suggested they would, but wouldn’t 

admit it – yet.

 

This controversial and provocative chapter re-opens deep old wounds and is accompanied by an 

Appendix (which can be downloaded separately, if required) containing four of the documents about 

EU fraud and corruption produced during those eventful weeks at the end of 2004.

 

Access to this sensational chapter, and the rest of the book, is via the website www.ashleymote.co.uk.  

Full details are on the home page.

 

 
To respond to, or comment on this Email, please email ashley.mote@btconnect.com

Click www.ashleymote.co.uk to visit the site now.