With Britons and British companies no longer eligible to hold .eu domain names following Brexit, the Leave campaign have shown what hypocrites they are by updating the contact details for their domain name, Leave.eu, to an Irish address, in order to keep it.
The group, which has peddled lies and disinformation about Brexit for years, was founded by businessman Arron Banks, of whom there are “extraordinary allegations … a tale of diamonds, guns and Russian cash”, and backed by Nigel Farage. One of the most prominent lies and disinformation peddled was the red Brexit bus plastered with “We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead.” Which implied to voters there would be an extra £350 million each week for the NHS. Which was obviously never going to happen.
One critic of the move, AC Grayling, commented on Twitter “Leave.eu moves to Ireland in order to stay in the EU. The looking-glass world of Brexit hypocrisy.” The Guardian notes that “Brexit forced the Eurosceptic campaign group to choose between its name and its country. According to domain name registration records, the organisation … picked the former.”
The Guardian further reports the domain name is now registered to “Sean Power, the chief executive of the Ireland-based professional services company BSG. When asked, however, Power, who is based in Waterford, insisted that he had no involvement with the organisation. When informed that his name and contact details were present on the registration, he said he would be ‘looking into the matter’.”
Visiting the Leave.eu website one sees prominently a Twitter feed peddling more of their lies and disinformation, Tweets their hero the US President Trump would be proud of.
As I previously wrote, on 1 January Britons became ineligible to hold .eu domain names after the Brexit “Transition Period” came to an end on 31 December. On new year’s eve there were 81,470 .eu domain names registered to British registrants according to statistics on the EURid website, down from 317,286 three years ago on 31 December 2017.
And if not all, the vast majority will now be held in a “suspended” status until 31 March 2021 as they are no longer compliant with the .eu regulatory framework. A .eu domain name in the “SUSPENDED” status can no longer support any service (such as website and email), but may still be reinstated if registration data is updated to meet the eligibility criteria.
On 31 March any non-compliant .eu domain names will then be moved to “WITHDRAWN” status on 1 April. A domain name in the “WITHDRAWN” status is not in the zone file and cannot support any service.
On 1 January 2022 all .eu domain names in the “WITHDRAWN” status, formerly assigned to UK registrants, will be REVOKED and subsequently, become AVAILABLE for general registration. Their release will occur in batches for security reasons.
To prove they are eligible to hold a .eu domain names, British registrants will need to prove they are a legally established entity in one of the eligible European Union or European Economic Area country, or by updating their residence to or proving their citizenship of an EU/EEA Member State irrespective of their residence.