BREAKING: Labour MP Liam Byrne, the short seller and the Russian Smear - a report to the Standards Commissioner is going in next week

Short seller Fraser Perring is not universally loved. Like me he falls out with former allies but I would count him as a friend and on companies such as Home REIT and Wirecard he has done some exceptional work. This week, I can reveal, he will submit a formal complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner about senior Labour MP Liam Byrne which should be career ending for the socialist.

In 2023 Perring and his Viceroy Research outfit went into bat against US listed Steward Health Care, a hospital operator in America and Malta. Perring argued that it was not only a financial house of cards but also dangerous to patient health. By May 2024 it had gone bust, drowning in billions of dollars of debt although CEO Ralph de la Torre had, luckily for him, trousered $250 million in just four years as the ship went down.

So Perring was wholly vindicated and made money on his short. But the company did not go down without a fight, spending millions of dollars hiring firms to target critics notably Perring and also our pal at Boatman Capital. Fake twitter accounts were set up, notably @viceroyleaks, spewing a stream of defamatory comments about Perring. Spooks trespassed on private land to secretly film Perring and his family at home, film that has now made its way to the internet. Journalists were briefed against him. But the coup de grace came in Parliament.

One of the firms engaged was Orbis run by Chris Steele a former UK Intelligence Officer. If that name rings a bell it is because he was the author of the Donald Trump Russia collusion dossier from the 2016 election. This dossier was presented as an Independent report. Only after the election as each and every claim made in it was debunked did it emerge that crooked Hillary Clinton paid for it. It was a classic false flag operation.

So on March 2 2023 Orbis, in return for a £30,000 payment originating with Steward, arranged with Liam Byrne MP to ask questions in the House of Commons, using Parliamentary Immunity which protected him from libel claiming that Perring and associates made frequent trips top Russia and acted to undermine British defence firms, these short sellers were, it was claimed, quite simply Putin assets, agents of the Russian Government.

Perring had supported the Boatman Capital bear dossier of defence firm Babcock (BAB) not because he was a Putin asset but because the accounts were suspect and the shares overvalued as Boatman demonstrated. Subsequent restatements by Babcock made it clear that Boatman, Perring and this website were correct. Perring has not made frequent trips to Russia and, for what it is worth, I last visited it 49 years ago!

The claims were thus palpably false and Steward’s bosses have been recorded on tape boasting that this was their false flag and it worked. Perring’s bank accounts and one belonging to his child were frozen and his business severely disrupted. His reputation was trashed.

So why did Byrne ask the question on behalf of Steele? Did Steele just brief him and Byrne blundered in with this defamatory assertion out of the goodness of his heart? If so, given how it damaged the life of a British citizen and his family for the “crime” of exposing fraud this shows Byrne bringing the House into disrepute. Surely Labour should withdraw the whip?

Or did Steele pass on any of the £30,000 to Byrne or his local party via a donation? If that was the case this would surely be so serious that Byrne should be suspended from Parliament long enough to allow a recall petition forcing a by-election

In recent days there have been two new developments. Firstly, Perring has obtained written proof that Byrne repeated the defamatory statements outside Parliament which might open up the possibility of him taking legal action. There is a 12 month time limit for him to take action which has now passed but this can be extended if evidence only later comes to light as has now happened. There is thus the possibility of a legal claim.

Secondly Perring will this week report Byrne to the Standards Commissioner which could prove to be the end of Byrne’s career. if any money was shown to have changed hands

If Sir Kier Starmer had any honour he would suspend Byrne from the Labour party until this is resolved. At the very least Byrne has damaged the business and hurt the family of an innocent man as that man exposed a multi billion dollar fraud. That is surely very wrong indeed.