Elcom refute Christopher Booker's UKIP/Farage spin

You will recall that both Christopher Booker and Iain Dale foolishly sought to make excuses for UKIP after the party lost their appeal against Elcom. See:LINK & LINK

This concerned donations made by Alan Bown who was not on the electoral roll at the time. This is illegal under electoral law.

Here is Elcom's answer. It was published in the Sunday Telegraph. We at Junius sincerely hope that both Mr Booker and Mr Dale will now cease their ill-judged attempts to defend UKIP's corrupt and dishonest leadership.

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