FORMER Tory candidate Michael Fry has described the shadowy Scottish Unionist Association Trust as control-obsessed duds and plotters, interested only in the subjection of Holyrood by Westminster.
Fry, who now writes a weekly column for The National, clashed with many on the trust’s board during his foray into Conservative politics.
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Last week, public and political pressure saw the shadowy group forced to reveal the names of the people involved. An investigation by the Ferret website revealed the trust donated £318,876.66 to the Tories between April 9, 2001 and February 28 this year.
Because the Scottish Unionist Association Trust (SUAT) is not registered with Companies House, the Financial Conduct Authority, or OSCR – Scotland’s charity watchdog – there is no public information available about the people who manage the organisation, and no public accounts to indicate who its donors are, or what assets it holds.
Last Wednesday, the SUAT revealed that the trust was formed in 1968 from “assets of the (then) Scottish Unionist Association, primarily sales of property assets”.
The chairman of the SUAT, is Robert Miller-Bakewell, who is also the chairman of the Scottish Borders Conservative and Unionist Association.
He and trustee Kim Donald were on the Tory executive in 2000, and left because of the civil war engulfing the party at the time.
Writing in today’s paper, Fry, who stood as the Tory candidate in Maryhill for the Holyrood elections in 1999, says he thought all these people were dead.
“I knew them from the time they were in charge of the Conservative machine even before the Scottish wipe-out at the UK election of 1997.
“I used to write then how incredible it was that those who had just led the party to such a crushing defeat never seemed to think it was their fault especially.
“On the contrary, to their minds, it was just a temporary blip.
“Scots might have been led astray by anti-Tory delusions, such as the idea that devolution was worth a try, but surely they must soon come to their senses?
“Then they would see how the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major had been completely right about Scotland all along.”
SUAT board chairman Millar-Bakewell is “an Old Harrovian financier and stalwart of the horse-racing scene in the Borders, and he certainly disapproved of the oiks”, says Fry, who describes himself as an oik.
Donald, Fry alleges, plotted behind the scenes to topple Raymond Robertson, the former MP who was chairman of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party because “he too, was an oik”.
The Trust is currently “in dialogue with” the Electoral Commission over its donations to the Tories.
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