EU Referendum: WESS Digital, Guido And Matthew Elliott

It's interesting that when we began with a simple observation about WESS Digital's potential conflict of interest regarding Matthew Elliott's involvement in applying to the Electoral Commission in anticipation of the upcoming EU Referendum, it leads to further developments upon investigation.

We note that Guido asserted in my comments in an earlier blog that he had no involvement in WESS Digital Limited since 2013, a website which has now been deleted, despite apparently going "dark" two years ago. With this in mind we quote him here:

I have had no involvement in WESS since 2013, am not a shareholder and was never a director.

In addition Robert Oxley who also commented on my blog noted:

For the record, Matthew Elliott left Wess in 2013 following the launch of Business for Britain 

Companies House, however, records something quite different and via their records we see in the WESS Digital's Annual Return of 2014 that the shareholders were apparently made up to the 26th June 2014, not 2013 as claimed.  The details are as follows (click to enlarge):

It also seems rather odd for a company which promoted its data services for the 2015 election "disabands" well before 2015 without any kind of significant turnover which we might expect from an active company - its accounts recording shareholders' funds of being just only £3,977.

It gives an indication that our earlier assertion that it was being used as a company to become part of an anticipated early EU referendum and using its funding was not without merit. In addition we can see by Companies House records that the latest Company Accounts and the Annual Return are now overdue.

We also see by the Annual Return that until very recently its address was registered at 14 Bowling Green Lane, London EC1R 0BD. This is the address which coincidentally happens to be the same address MessageSpace is registered with - a company well known as co-founded by Guido. WESS Digital's registered address of Bowling Green has been used since the establishment of WESS. It certainly puts a different perspective on Guido's comments of; "I have had no involvement in WESS since 2013".

And by the recent Annual Returns we can see that two of the shareholders in WESS are companies. One such company shareholder was Strateusis Ltd the other being Guido Fawkes' Global and General Nominees Limited (GGN) which is an offshore company based in St Kitts and Nevis which publishes Guido Fawkes' blog.

Guido Fawkes aka Paul Staines has previously described himself as only an "adviser" to GGN despite that GGN publishes his blog and that he is a director of a very similar named company Global and General Nominees (Hong Kong) Limited, registered unsurprisingly in Hong Kong.

Strateusis Limited is also registered in Hong Kong and this certainly proves to be interesting. Jag Singh describes himself as the senior partner in Strateusis and it's revealing that a majority of so-called success stories listed on his website are companies he is involved with or has invested in with connections to Guido Fawkes.

To give one such example is Youfundme Limited, listed on the website. This is a company with two directors. One director is Andrew Whitehurst who is currently (and always has been) the sole director of WESS Digital. What a surprising coincidence.

The other director of Youfundme Limited is Voter Consultancy Limited. And Voter Consultancy Ltd has only one director, Thomas Borwick. Borwick also founded "Kanto Systems", which apparently is "a political data profiling company attempting to bring UK campaigning into the 21st century". Not unlike the raison d'etre of WESS Digital.

Kanto Systems is a company where Borwick is co-director with his brother. But then we discover Borwick is also the registered owner of the website URL "campaigntoleave.com" domain with his address on whoislookup being given as as 55 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3QL.

As Richard North, of EUReferendum.com notes 55 Tufton Street is the home of Business for Britain limited, a company which is currently listed with Companies House as "dormant". Of course any dormant company which carries on trading has the potential of attracting the interest of HMRC.

Interestingly Borwick gives his e-mail as Thomas.borwick@nocampaign.org. The URL "no.campaign" domain, listed here, is a domain which is registered to one Matthew Elliott. It has an address given as Albert Embankment SE1 7XQ, which funnily enough is now WESS Digital's new registered address since the 15th September 2015 as per recent documents listed with Companies House.

With this we can see clearly links between Jag Singh, Paul Staines, Matthew Elliott, Andrew Whitehurst and Thomas Borwick.

Should Elliott win the Electoral Commission's official designation, one wonders where the service contracts will be going...

More to follow...

Guido Fawkes And Matthew Elliott: Curiouser and Curiouser

The above screenshot is from the site WESS Digital from 2013 (via WayBack Machine) - a website which has now been taken down - which clearly has Matthew Elliott describing himself as a non-Executive Director of WESS Digital Ltd.

Elliott's profile on WESS notes:

As well as being a non-executive director of Wess, Matthew is currently setting up a new campaign group which will launch in Spring 2013.

Elsewhere he has been described as being on the board of WESS.

It becomes interesting therefore that Companies House appears not to have any record of Elliott's capacity as a non-Executive Director from any of the six documents listed on the site since the company's incorporation on 22nd of October 2012. According to their records he has never been a non-executive director.

Both executive and non-executive directors are subject to the same responsibilities’ and liabilities and such a position of non-executive director has to be notified to Companies House via an AP01 form:

This Companies House form AP01 – Appointment of Director should be used to register the appointment of either a non-executive director or an alternate director with Companies House. Where an alternate is treated as a director for the purposes of the Companies Act 2006, Companies House requires form AP01 to be completed and returned to them. Form AP01 is the form used to appoint a director generally.

A non-executive director, like any other director of a company will require his/her appointment and details notified to Companies House.

We have to wonder therefore whether this is an oversight on WESS' website behalf or Companies House. It begs the question, assuming that Companies House records regarding WESS have been correct over a number of years, whether Elliott has acted as a non-executive Director without notifying Companies House, or has he been advertising himself publicly as being in a position without official merit?

With this in mind we note Robert Oakly's comment on our previous post:

For the record, Matthew Elliott left Wess in 2013 following the launch of Business for Britain and he does not hold any shares in the company nor have any legal relationship with it. Clearly, there was a mistake that Matthew's name remained on the website.

Yet not only has Elliott never had a legal relationship according to Company House records, it's interesting that even after the launch of Business for Britain, the WESS was edited to record Elliot's BfB's position without removing the "mistake" in Oakly's words, an alleged "mistake" which remained until at least 17th August 2015 and then the WESS website was subsequently pulled very recently with the same wording intact:

As well as being a non-executive director of Wess, Matthew is the current Chief Executive of Business for Britain.

So the website was amended to include the fact that Elliott had become CEO of BfB but claims of an apparent legal relationship, seemingly unknown to Companies House, remained on the website right up to 15 September 2015. This from a man who wishes to run an EU referendum campaign?

More to follow...