Scottish Unionist Campaigns funded by Dark Money
Report claims These Islands, Our Scottish Future (Gordon Brown), Scottish Business UK, and the Centre for the Union are secretive dark money organisations.
A report by OpenDemocracy has ranked leading think tanks in the UK – including Business for Scotland – from A to E in terms of openness and transparency around their funding.
Business for Scotland has received the highest ‘A’ rating but all Unionist organisations have been given the lowest grade of ‘E’.
Scottish Business UK, These Islands, Our Scottish Future (headed by Gordon Brown) and the Centre for the Union are all secretive and shady about where their funding comes from. All organisations were contacted in advance by OpenDemocracy – the Unionists had every opportunity to publish their sources of funding but all steadfastly refused to do so.
The lack of transparency is therefore no oversight but a deliberate decision by the fake-grassroots Unionist groups to hide who funds them because the truth would probably damage them. The fact that they wish to hide their finances suggests that they need to and that their funding would expose their hidden agendas, as well as political and far right-wing connections.
These groups oppose not only Scottish independence but also Scotland’s right to choose – they are anti-democratic pressure groups. They have consistently failed to answer legitimate questions on how they are funded, who by and from what countries their funding originates. They must now be considered dark money organisations.
Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, the founder and Chief Executive of Business for Scotland, which received an ‘A’ rating in the report, said:
“These Unionist groups seem to have access to significant funding to continually put Scotland down. Their reports and events have nothing positive to say about Scotland, nor anything positive to contribute to Scottish political discourse. They are shamefully secretive and clearly have something to hide.
The public needs to know who is trying to influence public policy. The media should only cover them if accompanied with a public information warning that says: ‘this organisation is secretive and lacks transparency about its funding and why dark money donors back their agendas.’ ”
ENDS
Background
Link to Report:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/who-funds-you/
Past Coverage of Dark Money Unionist Groups on Business for Scotland: