Opendemocracy.net recently reported on investigations into allegations that several Tory members of England’s Parliament used taxpayer cash to fund a shadowy hard-Brexit pressure group that they are active members of, stating:
“A number of Cabinet members appear to have breached the rules of government through their membership of a secretive hard-Brexit lobby group, now chaired by the outspoken government critic Jacob-Rees Mogg, openDemocracy can reveal today.
“Senior Conservative ministers including Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsom, Penny Mordaunt and David Gauke have used taxpayers’ cash to fund the hard-Brexit European Research Group (ERG), which is now led by Rees-Mogg MP, who has been accused in recent days of trying to undermine Prime Minister Theresa May and oust her Chancellor, Philip Hammond.
“The ministers have funded this lobby group (through their expense claims) whilst holding posts in government – despite the ministerial code prohibiting ministers from becoming ‘associated with non-public organisations whose objectives may in any degree conflict with government policy’.”
The bit that could be of interest to occultists would be the esoteric predilections of the ERG’s secretary, one of its founding members, Daniel Hannan:
“Hannan, now a right-wing commentator and MEP, has been described as ‘the man who brought you Brexit’ and is, by all accounts, a remarkable character. According to a fellow student at Oriel college, Oxford, his obsession with leaving the EU was matched only by his interest in magic, and in the occultist Aleister Crowley. One evening, we are told, he was convinced that he would win the election for president of the Conservative club, as he had cast all of the right spells. He returned to his room that night, baffled at having lost, only to discover that a key candle had gone out.”
Which I guess goes to show that an interest in thaumaturgy or Crowley does not result in a particular political perspective as anyone acquainted with the biographies of both Grady McMurtry and J.F.C. Fuller — especially their respective later years would know.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/adam-ramsay/tory-ministers-taxpayer-cash-hard-Brexit-erg.
