[2][3] Banks was previously one of the largest donors to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and helped Nigel Farage's campaign for Britain to leave the EU.
In November 2018 the National Crime Agency opened an investigation into Banks following concerns raised over the source of his funding.
"[5] He was reported to have had multiple meetings with Russian embassy officials[6] as well as being offered business opportunities in Russia in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.
[11] His 2016 book The Bad Boys of Brexit: Tales of Mischief, Mayhem & Guerrilla Warfare in the EU Referendum Campaign was ghostwritten by pro-Brexit journalist Isabel Oakeshott.
[14] Banks was born in Cheshire, England, and raised by his mother in Basingstoke, Hampshire; his father worked as a sugar plantation manager in various African countries.
He used the money to found Commercial Vehicle Direct about which he says "within a very short period we were the largest van insurance company in the country".
[19][20][18] After Banks was dismissed from the company in 2012, he sold £6m worth of the shares in 2013, and received significantly more when the investment firm AnaCap Financial Partners bought Brightside the following year.
[26] The offshore holding company that controls Eldon Insurance is ICS Risk Solutions, which funds many of Banks' activities and has paid over £77m between 2015 and 2018 to prop up Southern Rock after Gibraltarian regulators found the business to be trading while technically insolvent.
[33] Following intensified media scrutiny after his initial donation to UKIP, it emerged that Banks was involved in mining in southern Africa and had connections to Belize.
[34] However, following remarks made by The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci on BBC One's Question Time programme, Banks denied owning a company in Belize or seeking to avoid UK tax "via any device".
[34] Banks has also been a "substantial" shareholder in STM Fidecs, of which Leave.EU is a subsidiary; the company claims to be specialising in "international wealth protection", maximising tax efficiencies for entrepreneurs and expatriates and of "structuring international groups, particularly separating and relocating intellectual property and treasury functions to low- or no-tax jurisdictions".
Banks said that he had changed party allegiance because he agreed with UKIP's policies and its view that the European Union "is holding the UK back" because it's a "closed shop for bankrupt countries".
[40][41] He signalled his intention to stand for UKIP in the constituency of Thornbury and Yate at the 2015 general election,[42] but the candidate chosen by the party was Russ Martin, who came third.
[47] A spokesman for Nigel Farage said that Banks had funded the Chipping Sodbury office for the South Gloucestershire Conservatives "to the tune of £250,000".
[21] A UKIP source told The Guardian that Banks had also loaned £75,417 to Thornbury and Yate Conservative Party through Panacea Finance (his former company) in September 2007, registered on the Electoral Commission and to be paid back by 2022.
[41] Banks credits the success of Leave.EU to their hiring of Goddard Gunster and their subsequent adoption of "an American-style media approach.
Banks' response to the information commissioner, who in 2016 fined the campaign £50,000 for sending more than half a million unsolicited text messages, was a succinct "Whatever".
[71] In September 2019 the National Crime Agency said it had found no evidence of criminality after investigating a series of claims against the Brexit campaign group Leave.EU and Arron Banks.
[73][74] As of April 2022, the Brexit campaign group Leave.EU has gone into liquidation with co-founder Arron Banks appearing to write off a loan worth more than £7m.
The Observer has seen evidence that suggests his Leave.EU campaign team met with Russian embassy officials as many as 11 times in the run-up to the EU referendum and in the two months beyond.
[79] This legal action carried out by Banks was considered by 19 press freedom organisations to be a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) and abuse of law.
[82] In August 2019 Banks was criticised by Labour MPs Tonia Antoniazzi and David Lammy after a tweet about the climate change activist Greta Thunberg as she set off on a two-week voyage in a zero carbon yacht.
Banks responded that he produced the tweet because he enjoys watching outrage,[83] later stating: "Obviously I don't hope she encounters a freak yachting accident.
The website included jokes about the treatment of religious people by the Conservatives, claimed Chuka Umunna is "Labour's chief spokesman for tokenism" and described Amnesty International as an organisation which supports "loudmouth idiots chained to a radiator".
[85] On 19 January 2017 (one day before Donald Trump's inauguration as the 45th President of the United States) Banks launched Westmonster alongside Michael Heaver, former press adviser to Nigel Farage.
[86][87] It is modelled on the right-wing US websites Breitbart News and the Drudge Report and claims to be "pro-Brexit, pro-Farage, pro-Trump, anti-establishment, anti-open borders, anti-corporatism".
Better for the Country Ltd is the company that ran Leave.EU (one of two main pro-Brexit campaigns, affiliated to Farage) and is directed by Leave.EU's chief executive, Elizabeth Bilney.
[86] Although primarily a news aggregator website akin to the Drudge Report, Westmonster does plan to publish original content[86][87] and enlist the support of celebrities and backbench MPs.
[90] Early contributions to the website included a piece written by Nigel Farage stating that the "political establishment" of the United Kingdom had not woken up to European populist movements, as well as articles showing majority British support for a burka ban and criticising "remoaners" for "trying to subvert the will of the people".
[92] Banks was portrayed by actor Lee Boardman in the 2019 HBO and Channel 4 produced drama entitled Brexit: The Uncivil War.