THERE are two separate so-called dark money scandals now associated with the Scottish Tories.
One involves Richard Cook – the former vice-chairman of the party and a former election candidate – and his pro-Brexit donations.
READ MORE: Secretive Tory trust forced out of the shadows amid 'dark money' row
The other is about the shadowy Scottish Unionist Association Trust and its huge payments to Tory MPs, MSPs and local parties.
The are two different stories with one common question: where is the money coming from?
Cook is the public face of the Constitutional Research Council. It funnelled money through the DUP and to Brexit minister Steve Barker in his role as a chair of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group.
Cook told the Sunday Herald last year that the CRC’s money came “only from eligible UK donors”. Asked if any Scots had donated to the CRC, he replied: “Yes.”
Quizzed on how many Scots had made financial contributions, he stated: “I shouldn’t have said yes there, so I am not going to go into any more.”
Asked how much money had been donated to the CRC since 2014, Cook said: “I’m not going to get into that.”
Meanwhile, since 2001, the Scottish Unionist Association Trust has donated £318,876.66 to 15 local Conservative Party branches, and to the MSP Jackson Carlaw, and MPs David Duguid and Douglas Ross. It has also loaned the party in East Renfrewshire £5000.
As of yesterday, we now know the names of the trustees and the address of the trust’s headquarters, and that it is chaired by banker Robert Miller-Bakewell.
The trust says its money comes from the proceeds of selling property belonging to what was then the Scottish Unionist Association in the late 1960s, which has been wisely invested.
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