Thread: Electoral Commission responds to UKIP misinformation

Originally Posted by BASILDON BOY

67 seperate donations over the course of a year and ignoring the Electoral Commission on numerous occaisons!

Ukip’s rulebreaking

SIR – It is not correct for Christopher Booker (October 25) to suggest that Ukip was guilty of only a “trivial breach of electoral law” due to an “oversight” by not checking whether their donor, Alan Bown, was on the electoral register.

The law is clear: political parties must check that a donor is on the electoral register each time they accept a donation over £200. Ukip chose not to do so on 67 separate occasions, over a period of more than a year, and despite repeated warnings from the Electoral Commission.

Ukip took donations it was not entitled to receive, which gave it financial resources it was not entitled to have under the law. Ukip accepted that these donations – which totalled more than £365,000 – were all impermissible. But the magistrates’ court ordered them to forfeit just £18,481.

The Electoral Commission’s view was that this treatment of one party which had not followed the rules was unfair to the majority that do follow the rules and which have previously forfeited impermissible donations. The Court of Appeal shared that view.

Christopher Booker also claimed that the Commission “seems unwilling to take further action” in relation to donations from 5th Avenue Partners to the Liberal Democrats. In fact, we are conducting an ongoing investigation into that issue.

Peter Wardle
Chief Executive
The Electoral Commission
London SW1

That also nails Farage on one of his porkies.

So Farage mislead about this and on national TV about dealing decisively with Tom Wise.

This makes him every bit as bad as the rest.

UKIP if they were to be anything needed to be straight, honest and totally transparent.

If they had been all those things it would have made up for their political inexperience and IMO woould have paid dividends in increased membership and support.

It is for these reasons Nigel has been such a disasterous leader of UKIP.

On 67 separate occasions UKIP broke the law and used the illegally obtained funding to give it an unfair advantage over political opponents such as the BNP and the English Democrats. This pecuniary advantage enabled UKIP to fund campaigns and operations which it might otherwise have struggled to support. The UKIP leadership is either incompetent, corrupt, or both. Nigel Farage should personally apologise to UKIP members and supporters for letting them down so badly under his term of office, and to all of UKIP's political opponents who have competed with the party on a far from level playing field. To continue to refuse to accept any responsibility for what is now a £750,000 debt, and to put the blame for this fiasco entirely onto El Com, are the actions of a cad and a bounder.

Originally Posted by Caroline

On 67 separate occasions UKIP broke the law and used the illegally obtained funding to give it an unfair advantage over political opponents such as the BNP and the English Democrats. This pecuniary advantage enabled UKIP to fund campaigns and operations which it might otherwise have struggled to support. The UKIP leadership is either incompetent, corrupt, or both. Nigel Farage should personally apologise to UKIP members and supporters for letting them down so badly under his term of office, and to all of UKIP's political opponents who have competed with the party on a far from level playing field. To continue to refuse to accept any responsibility for what is now a £750,000 debt, and to put the blame for this fiasco entirely onto El Com, are the actions of a cad and a bounder.

A cad and bounder is a about right!

If UKIP had responded then UKIP would have been allowed to resolve the issue by apologising and retuning the donations - the donations could have been re donated later once the donor was back on the electoral register. Yet UKIP ignored the Electoral Commission and continued to receive the donations they knew they could not accept.

Once is a **** up, twice is a bit careless - but 67 times? And ignoring warning letters etc.

Just a thought - I am sure I have read somewhere that UKIP received funding from the Electoral Commission to train their staff?

Originally Posted by Mark Croucher

Considerably more honest, straight and transparent than you, Edmonds, West and the rabbit who works the controls in your head, Watkins, who have apparently diverted cash direct from members of the public into the pockets of your chums.

Good try oh spin master.

I think most people viewing this forum, apart fron your fellow sycophants, knows where you are coming from