THE SNP ratcheted up the pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday after his admission that he had made a profit from his late Scottish father’s offshore fund that never paid tax in Britain.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and SNP Westminster foreign affairs spokesman Angus MacNeil both issued strong statements, the latter saying that if this was Iceland “David Cameron would be finished”.
This morning, at 11am, thousands of protesters are expected to gather at Downing Street to call for Mr Cameron to resign in the wake of the scandal. The demonstration was being quickly organised on social media yesterday. By 7pm, some 8,000 people — including pop singer Lily Allen — had confirmed they would be attending or were interested in going.
Last night it emerged that the Prime Minister, who is also under serious fire from Eurosceptics over the £9 million pro-Europe leaflet campaign he authorised, had previously told Tory candidates that they must be open about their finances, just two months after he netted £30,000 by selling his shares in his late father Ian’s offshore Blairmore Holdings.
Pro-Tory The Daily Telegraph reported that all of the Conservative Party’s candidates for the 2010 general election were told to reveal private details of their financial situation and promise to pay full UK tax while in Parliament. The order followed the row over Tory donor Lord Ashcroft’s “non-domiciled” tax status.
Conservative campaign headquarters circulated a document in March, 2010, and one Tory MP told The Daily Telegraph: “It is hypocrisy. What other definition do you have for when you tell people they have got to do one thing and do the opposite yourself?”
A Conservative spokesman said: “In line with the Ministry of Justice Guidance on Declarations of Interest, all parliamentary candidates for the 2010 election provided information about their tax affairs relating to the most recent full tax year.
“This included a declaration stating that the candidate supported the next Conservative government’s requirement that anyone sitting in either house would be required by law to be a full UK taxpayer.”
Comedian Jimmy Carr, who was targeted by the Prime Minister for his “morally wrong” tax-avoidance scheme in 2012, entered the debate via Twitter yesterday. He said: “I am going to keep it classy. It would be ‘morally wrong’ and ‘hypocritical’ to comment on another individual’s tax affairs.”
Meanwhile, opposition politicians have vented their anger at Cameron. Former London mayor Ken Livingstone even suggested the Prime Minister should be in prison.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was yesterday revealed to be ahead of the Prime Minister in approval ratings, said Cameron has misled the public and lost the trust of the British people. Corbyn demanded the Prime Minister make a statement to Parliament over the controversy.
Labour’s Treasury spokesman John Mann again called for Cameron tor resign but Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron refused to do so. He said: “I do not think it helps to add to the litany of people that the Labour Party thinks should resign. I do not think that is the way forward but I think he has clearly put himself in a position where him and his party are all the more seen as a government on the side of very few, very wealthy, very powerful people and not, as Iain Duncan Smith rightly said, acting in the national interest.”
The SNP’s attacks included the First Minister saying it appears the information has had to be dragged out of Cameron.
The SNP leader said: “I think he needs to be open, transparent, give full information; but perhaps even more importantly there has to be a root-and-branch overhaul of the UK rules around tax avoidance.”
MacNeil said: “If David Cameron was in Iceland he would be finished as prime minister. How do British standards compare? David Cameron has played the public, first saying the issue was a private family matter before finally admitting he has personally benefited from an offshore tax haven, taking in £30,000 from shares just before he became Prime Minister.
“Arguably, Icelanders have tolerated less than the hypocrisy we have seen from the Prime Minister, who has presented himself as a champion against offshore tax havens having personally pocketed from them. Have David Cameron’s interests influenced his actions in Parliament? They should have been declared before now.
“The Prime Minister is in a dire situation. He has led us down the garden path and the public will find it very difficult to ever trust him again.”
One SNP source told The National that questions needed to be asked about the Prime Minister’s extended family and their ownership of a large estate on the island of Jura which the Camerons are known to visit for holidays. Viscount William Astor, stepfather of Samantha Cameron, owns the estate through Ginge Manor Estates, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands.
The source said: “He has said his children will not benefit from offshore schemes but it looks like his mother-in-law and her stepchildren will.”
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