LAS T WEEK local businessman and the owner of Old Down Manor announced that he would donate £1m to the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Arron Banks is well known in the region for co-founding Aust-based insurance firm Brightside, who he left in 2012. Mr Banks also founded Go Skippy based in Cribbs Causeway who provide car insurance.

It was his initial intention to donate £100,000 to the anti-EU party but after being dismissed by former Conservative party leader, William Hague, as “someone we haven’t heard of” upped his donation to £1million.

He announced the increased donation in front of the country’s media alongside Nigel Farage on the lawn of Old Down Manor.

With his donation Mr Banks became only the fifth individual to give at least £1million to any political party in the country since 2010.

In an interview with the BBC, shortly after announcing his donation to the party, Mr Banks implied that he would be standing as a UKIP candidate for the Thornbury and Yate constituency – currently held by Liberal Democrat minister of state for pensions Steve Webb however no one from UKIP was able to confirm this.

Mr Banks, who lives in Tockington, defected from the Conservative Party – who he had donated at least £25,000 to – to UKIP however he had not given any money to the party since 2009.

He said that he had been a Conservative all his life but he believed that the UK would be better off outside the European Union, calling it a “closed shop for bankrupt countries”.

Following the news Mr Banks was criticised for owning several businesses based in tax haven but he hit back when he presented a copy of a cheque sent to HM Revenues and Customs for just under £2million.

Neither Arron Banks nor UKIP were available for comment on any of the points raised.