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The Electoral Commission’s demand that Ukip pay back over £350,000 to a wealthy donor could spell the end for the anti-EU party, its leader claimed today.
“There is a deliberate attempt being made by the authorities to put us out of business,” Nigel Farrage told the Channel 4 News Morning Report podcast.
The Electoral Commission announced yesterday that it would initiate proceedings to require the UK Independence party to forfeit £367,697 of what it said were “impermissible donations” from Alan Bown, a British businessman.
The party received the donations from Mr Bown, a major Ukip donor, at a time when his name, Mr Farrage said, was temporarily absent from the electoral register.
The party also faces fines totalling £1,500 for filing its accounts “unacceptably” late, the elections watchdog disclosed.Mr Farrage said that the dispute was the result of a “simple clerical error” and added: “This is an entirely disproportionate use of the law and I feel there is a deliberate attempt being made by the authorities to put us out of business.”
But he promised that his party would have “one hell of a whip-round to try and sort this out”, and told his supporters: “Hold heart. We’ve done nothing wrong. We’ve got nothing to hide in the least.
“Clearly the authorities have put us in a very difficult position but we’re a very determined bunch of people. We want the independence of our country back and we’ll find a way through this.”
Mr Bown, a retired bookmaker, was now back on the electoral register and would be able to give the party more money, Mr Farrage said, adding: “Alan Bown has lived in the United Kingdom, worked in the United Kingdom, he has never lived offshore, he has paid millions of pounds in tax, he is a fully paid-up member of society.
“This legislation was designed to stop foreign dodgy money coming into Britain, it was not designed to penalise people like Alan Bown who make a simple slip with a piece of paperwork.”
Ukip’s chairman, John Whittaker, said: “Mr Bown was entitled to be on the electoral register throughout the period in question and has been a permanent resident and taxpayer in the UK all his working life.”
The national party is to be fined £1,000 for filing its 2005 annual statement of accounts almost six months after an extended deadline.
Its south-east England branch will be charged a further £500 for presenting its accounts to the Electoral Commission more than six months late.
Mr Farrage admitted that the accounts had been filed late – because “we changed treasurers midway through last year” – but insisted that “they were filed correctly”.
Action will be taken against Ukip under the 2000 Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, which forbids the taking of money from certain “impermissible donors”.
That usually means people or organisations which are not registered in the UK.
Under the act, parties have up to 30 days from the date the donation was received to return the money to the donor.
Electoral Commission sources told the Press Association news agency that the Ukip donations in question dated from 2004.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/otherparties/story/0,,2020092,00.html
From the BNP website:
“Beleaguered Farage is already under considerable pressure from rivals within the party. Despite 9 representatives in the European Parliament UKIP struggles to raise money for campaigning and the nocturnal activities of the UKIP MEPs in Brussels are legendary. Only last Friday Farage was carried out of Murphy’s, an Irish theme pub in Strasbourg after falling asleep at the bar.It also emerged last night that Lord Kalms, the wealthy Tory donor who had warned earlier this year that he was considering switching his allegiance to UKIP, has decided to back the Conservatives under David Cameron.
He told the Financial Times that he considered Ukip “a bit of a red herring” and “had no doubt” that Mr Cameron would take a harder Eurosceptic line at the next election.
UKIP has been repeatedly talked up by the BBC and some daily newspapers as a softer alternative to the BNP as hundreds of local authority elections take place in May. In a by-election in Bedworth in Warwickshire the joke UKIP candidate took a total of 8 (EIGHT) votes.”
The falseness of ukip’s 2.6 million votes in 2004, is becoming more and more evident. They did not, and do not have core policy which is believed by enough people. Like the BNP state, ukip were encouraged to take votes off the BNP by the media, and the great unwashed fell for it like they unfortunately do about alot of things.
TWELVE MEP’s = NOTHING.
This is an interesting one Emma. I cannot help but feel that there is a whole lot more behind this story than is at first apparent.
The business of Mr Brown failing to register to vote being a ”simple clerical error” for example simply doesn’t make any sense. I could understand if one Electoral Registration form was perhaps ‘lost in the post’ …. but how many did he accidentally miss??? Either you are on the voter’s register or you aren’t.
“The party received the donations from Mr Bown, a major UkIP donor, at a time when his name, Mr Farrage said, was temporarily absent from the electoral register.” The only entitlement to appear is if you complete an annual return. You are either registered or you aren’t – there is no such thing as ”temporary absence.” He broke the law and that is all there is to it. Now they must lose the money, as it will be taken from them and NOT returned to Mr Brown. Tough luck huh?
The comments about UKIP filing their accounts late because “we changed treasurers midway through last year” – but insisted that “they were filed correctly” again doesn’t stand up to intelligent examination. Every organisation that has a statutory obligation to file accounts knows perfectly well that there is a cut off date – usually several MONTHS after the end of the financial year in question. They receive notices from the Registrar reminding them that their accounts haven’t been filed. If they choose to ignore these reminders and also to ignore their statutory duty to file, they can hardly complain if they get their wrist slapped and get fined.
It was reported in the Press this week that there was considerable disquiet within the UKIP about the way that certain monies were being handled – particularly the South East England Branch – where Mr Farrage is in control. I wonder what that is all about????????
An MEP from the UKIP is under investigation for fraud after embezzling tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money by pretending to be someone else.
Bank documents show that Tom Wise channelled nearly £40,000 of public funds into his personal account after claiming it was for an assistant’s salary. He is now being investigated by a European antifraud watchdog, which has asked to interview him and others in connection with the case.
This is potentially the most serious crisis to hit UKIP, which has always held itself up as the party opposed to the European Union “gravy train”.
The development comes as the Electoral Commission announced it was launching a full inquiry into UKIP’s finances after its repeated failures to keep within the rules. EU rules state that MEPs can claim up to £125,000 a year for assistants’ wages but the money must be paid either directly to the employees or through a third-party “agent”. To avoid fraud, MEPs are not allowed to handle the money themselves.
Instead Wise, a former policeman, pretended that his own bank account was actually that of Lindsay Jenkins, his researcher.
From November 2004 until October 2005 he funnelled £39,100 of taxpayers’ money into his own account with the Cooperative Bank from which he paid Jenkins just £13,555, according to bank statements obtained by The Sunday Times. They show that the only money coming into the account was from the EU, ostensibly for Jenkins.
In another breach of the EU rules, some of the £13,555 paid to her was actually for work done on behalf of other party members, including the UKIP leader Nigel Farage who had agreed to fund the publication of a Eurosceptic book written by Jenkins.
During the same timespan, more than £19,000 of the money was steadily paid out from Wise’s account to other destinations, some of them apparently credit cards. One disbursement alone, made via a transfer to somebody other than Jenkins, was for £6,500.
Last night Wise refused to reveal what the money had been used for. When questioned by The Sunday Times on the ultimate destination of the cash, he went silent before putting down the telephone. He failed to respond to further messages.
Wise, 58, an MEP for Eastern England since 2004, also applied for other assistants’ salaries to be paid through his bank account before the period involving Jenkins.
Despite an internal UKIP inquiry into Wise’s behaviour, launched after the EU became aware of his scam, no action has been taken against him and the results of the investigation have been kept secret.
Three days after the EU was alerted, and to head off a scandal, Wise began repaying £25,530.
If Olaf, the antifraud watchdog, establishes fraud, the evidence will be passed to British and Belgian police for a possible prosecution.
UKIP systematically flouts the spirit of EU rules, which forbid party workers from being paid with taxpayers’ money.
The party has been paying its regional organisers by designating them “advisers” and “assistants” to its 10 MEPs, thereby allowing them to draw salaries of up to £40,000 a year from the EU, while they do their actual jobs “in their spare time”.
Further details are set to be exposed because Denis Brookes, one of the party’s former officials, issued industrial tribunal proceedings against Mike Nat-trass, the party’s MEP for the West Midlands region.
It is understood that Brookes has stated in his claim for unfair dismissal that he was being paid to do one job while actually employed to do another one entirely, so that the party could secure EU funding for him.
“Some people in the party have a cavalier and even contemptuous attitude to taking what is actually taxpayers’ money and using it for their own ends,” a UKIP source said.
Within months of his election Wise was attempting to channel public funds into his own bank account. In October 2004 he applied to the EU payments office for Jenkins, a freelance researcher as well as a candidate at the time for selection to fight a parliamentary seat for the Conservatives, to be paid £36,000 a year.
He had, however, no intention of paying her such an amount. His actual agreement with her was that she would be given monthly “retainer” payments of £500 in return for her advice and statistical research, with any additional work being paid for on top.
Wise’s method was simple. He supplied the EU payments office with a contract, obtained by The Sunday Times, which included Jenkins’s name and details and stipulated that she apparently wanted her money to be paid into her account, entitled “Stags”.
In fact, this account, the full name of which was “T Wise trading as Stags”, was a business account run by the MEP himself.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1434608.ece
It always rains on ukip headquarters. I was tempted to vote for them in 2004, i would be peeved now if i had been sucked into that nightmare party.
If i was Nigel Farage, i’d go back to trading on the Stock Market, he was good at that.
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