Ashley Mote

Ashley Mote (born 25 January 1936, London) is an Independent Member of the European Parliament for South East England.^[1][2]. He is just released from prison (but tagged) following his conviction on eight charges of false accounting, eight of obtaining a money transfer by deception, four of evading liabilities and one of failing to notify a change of circumstances in relation to his receipt of housing and council tax benefits.

Contents 1 Career 2 Cricket historian 3 Politics 4 Imprisonment for benefit fraud 5 External links 6 References 7 Bibliography

Career

Mote previously worked in the marketing industry, and has published two political books - Vigilance - A Defence of British Liberty (2001) about the European Union, and OverCrowded Britain: Our Immigration Crisis Exposed^[3] and "has researched EU fraud for many years."

Cricket historian

Mote is an award-winning cricket writer, his book The Glory Days of Cricket (1997) having won The Cricket Society's "Cricket Book of the Year" award in 1997^[4]. He also edited a 1998 re-issue of John Nyren's 1833 classic collection of articles on the Georgian game, The Cricketers of my Time. He is president of the revived Hambledon Club which raises money for colts cricket.

Politics

Mote was elected in June 2004 as a representative of the United Kingdom Independence Party for South East England. He was expelled from the party in July 2004 for failing to declare housing benefit fraud allegations to the party.^[5] In 2005 he joined with Hans Peter Martin and Paul van Buitenen (Europa Transparant) under the name Platform for Transparency (PfT) to promote Accountability in the European Union. In 2006 he gave evidence to the House of Lords enquiry into the EU's financial management of public funds. In January 2007, Ashley Mote became a founding member of the new far right, nationalist European Parliament group Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty.

Imprisonment for benefit fraud

UKIP removed their whip from Ashley Mote on 15 July 2004 after learning that he faced trial over allegations of housing benefit fraud. Mote failed to advise his party managers of the impending court case, and it only came to their attention when an article appeared in the The Daily Telegraph a few days after the European Union's election.^[6] The newspaper reported that he was facing nine charges of false accounting and one of making a false representation. Ashley Mote tried to seek legal immunity from prosecution from the European Union and applied during 2004 to the Legal Committee of the European Parliament for immunity from prosecution. After 7 months' consideration, the Legal Committee adopted the report by Klaus-Heiner Lehne (EPP-ED, DE) proposing that Parliament should waive the immunity, and made a ruling not to give Mote immunity from the criminal proceedings against him.^[7] The criminal proceedings against Mote were taken over by government lawyers in late 2005 from Chichester District Council. He somehow managed to get reporting restrictions imposed on the court proceedings. On 17 August 2007 Mote was found guilty at Portsmouth Crown Court on 21 counts - of frauds amounting to £73,000 (€109,500, US$146,000) - and acquitted on four discrete and minor charges brought separately by the Department of Work and Pensions.^[8] On 4 September 2007 he was sentenced to nine months imprisonment,^[9] avoiding losing his seat because his sentence was less than the statutory 12 month period.

Guest Speaker at White Supremacist American Renaissance Conference Feb. 22 – Feb. 24, 2008, Herndon, Virginia (near Washington, D.C.) Ashley Mote is scheduled to speak at the so called "American Renaissance Conference, called by Jared Taylor of the New Century Foundation. http://www.amren.com/conference/2008/index.html The conference has been denounced by the JDO http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/11/AR2007121102547.html as giving a platform to Neo-Nazis. The New Century Foundation is on the watch list of the ADL http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/amren.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=3&item=amren

External links

• Official Website
• Decision of the European Parliament of 10 July 2007 waiving immunity in respect of Ashley Mote

References

Bibliography

• Mote, Ashley, The Glory Days of Cricket: the Extraordinary Story of Broadhalfpenny Down, 1997, Robson Books Limited (winner of the Cricket Society's 1997 Cricket Book of the Year prize).
• Mote, Ashley, (ed.) John Nyren's Cricketers of my Time, the Original Version, 1998, Robson Books Limited (the full original text with introduction and explanatory footnotes by the editor).