The powers-that-be are moving to remove that annoyance to business-as-usual called the United Kingdom Independence Party by killing them with a legal move.
The UK Independence Party faces a crippling demand from election watchdogs to forfeit more than £360,000 of donations. The Electoral Commission is due to announce today that it is launching legal action to recover 68 separate donations made to the anti-Brussels party by one of its main backers […] The threat has stunned Ukip’s leadership, which admitted yesterday that forfeiting the money would effectively leave the party penniless […] He and Nigel Farage, the party leader, are furious at what they say is over-reaction to a “simple clerical error”. Mr Farage, who said Ukip’s annual income was about £250,000, said: “I would have expected a rap on the knuckles.”
What seems strange to me is that UKIP actually appear to be surprised something like this could happen. They are trying to break The System and neither of the two main parties who benefit from it really has any interest in seeing the vast body of consensus they both share threatened by outsiders. The LibDems are a predictable ‘given’ that do not really threaten the status quo… UKIP on the other hand is a wild card. If the UKIP thought the risk they posed as a spoiler was going to be fought out amongst ‘gentlemen’ via the ballot box, then they are more naive than I thought.
Also a pet peeve of mine… “launching legal action to recover 68 separate donations…” Recover? The money will be gobbled up by the Treasury. Seize, confiscate, appropriate, take, perhaps, but in order to ‘recover’ the money they would have to give it back to the donor. I have always though the legal use of the word ‘recover’ was the state speaking at its most euphemistically disingenuous.
First they came for the activists..
They say ignorance of the law is no excuse but that is a nonsensethese days as even lawyers are ignorant of much law without poring over Statutory Instruments.
Is this a law of intended consequences, as it certainly works towords the political status quo
There is something reassuring about UKIP’s naïveté and their belief that laws actually have purposes beyond power for the wielder. It shows them to be all the more trustworthy. I hope they get maximum publicity out of this and show up the New Labour/Conservatives for the corrupt, frightened, hands-in-the-till dirty tricksters they are.
It does look like a mighty suspicious move that has the inspiration of government’s dull hand somewhere behind it.
If the Electoral Commission was so concerned about party financing it surely must see the alleged £millions transferred for honours as vastly more important than the more modest gifts given to UKIP in good faith.
How about “recovering” a few £million from NuLab?
“Seize, confiscate, appropriate, take . . .”
Add “Steal” and “Extort” to that list. The unabashed use of sophistry by those in power is SOP.
I’ll bet the law used to nick this money was originally sold to the public as a measure to fight political corruption. What the law actually accomplished was to perfect corruption – in the hands of the ruling Klavern of Kleptocratic Kollectivists.
Freeman, I think you have a good plan. What better opportunity to get cash for peerages back on the front page again?
Hypocrisy. New Labour trades almost 14,000,000 pounds for peerages and a UKIP donor forgets to register a provable qualification and UKIP gets clobbered down to zero. Time to take another look at New Labour finances.
UKIP needs to say those two numbers together alot. 360,000 for a paperwork oversight and 29,900,000 (including Conservative) for ‘loans’. Then welcome this opportunity to examine political ethics and ask the political parties that received ‘loans’ to explain again why that was not a crime. Welcome, don’t hide from microphones. This is an opportunity.
It doens’t matter how often or how dishonestly the 3 parties answer, keep the other 3 explaining themselves. Play offense, not defense. UKIP defenders need to know their opponent’s sins as well as they know their own mistakes. They need to learn scandal names and amounts and compare them with UKIP’s errors during interviews to get juicy soundbites showing up the hypocrisy. Obviously, learning their opponents will be alot more work. If UKIP is going to loose that honest money, they might as well get their money’s worth of political capital out of it. The media is just cynical enough to take good soundbites when they are offered.
Freeman, Mid,
If the Electoral Commission was so concerned about party financing it surely must see the alleged £millions transferred for honours as vastly more important than the more modest gifts given to UKIP in good faith.
That’s not the Electoral Commission’s job. The Electoral Commission’s job is corporate welfare: creating and maintaining barriers to entry into politics for producers (parties, candidates) and stimulating demand from consumers (voters).
It is quite unusual as a protectionist body in that it protects one specific producer, the Labour movement, at the expense of others. The way it does so means that suppression of personal donations under the rubric of cash-for-honours or otherwise means a massive increase in the political power of trades unions. This is not a good thing. Don’t be too quick to condemn cash-for-honours.
(There’s another reason that cash-for-honours is the shade of a good thing. I’d rather people went into politics to spend their own money backing their own ideas against others, than to spend other people’s money implementing their ideas in the hope of becoming popular, let alone to acquire wealth by courting popularity in the absence of any competition of ideas.
The best political system is one that lets rich men impoverish themselves in office for honour afterwards; the worst, where office is a means for men to enrich themselves at others’ expense and call it honorable. Of the second form, I’m not sure that frank plunder and diamond thrones aren’t preferable to a large professional political class and Olympics.)
Perry,
Contrariwise, the LibDems are in much worse financial trouble in relation to contraregulatory donations. UKIP aren’t being picked on here at political direction. The Electoral Commission, like any bureaucracy, bites less those larger organisations with their own bureaucratic grease and compliance.
Which is not to say the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 is not designed to hamstring euroskeptics. It is. Particularly the late Sir James Goldsmith.
The law (thanks Guy), it seems, does not view being a citizen of the UK as establishing sufficient right to donate to a UK political party.
Is that one not rather strange?
Why did our legislature make it that way?
Why do riots, civil wars and other community violence start, if not through the suppressiomn or denial, by the establishment, of less drastic means by which beliefs widely held (even if only by a sizeable minority) can be properly aired, tested and (if appropriate) corrected?
Best regards
Oh, and is my interpretation correct, as follows?
Best regards
Disgruntled Tory voters seem to have been bypassing UKIP anyway and voting BNP. The powers-that-be tried twice to jail Nick Griffin. Those attempts seem to have backfired. All the publicity has simply increased BNP support. The recent results in Bedworth and Burnley show greater support for the BNP than either Cocaine-Cameron’s Conservatives or UKIP.
Perry, you must be a mind-reader. I thought the whole things sounded suspicious, and I immediately wondered whether some asshole at Tory HQ fearful of UKIP threats to the Tories in key marginals has been up to some dirty tricks.
The late Chris R. Tame liked to regale me with this sort of skulduggery. As soon as UKIP became a significant threat to the Tories, they would get shafted. He was right.
And that, a UK citizen solely resident elsewhere in the EU may not register for a vote in the UK (as they have no constituency of residence) and so may not contribute funding to a UK political party.
Yet a UK citizen solely resident overseas but outside the EU can? Or at least, that’s what I always thought.
They are more likely to get disgruntled Labour voters (the BNP are nothing if not collectivist).
I lived in Singapore for a number of years and saw how the opposition was emasculated/eviscerated using fines and other approaches. I see it clearly here. It is a technicality. It is most certainly NOT a ‘recovery’ of monies…though I guess Gordon thinks it is, as he considers “every penny piece” we have as his by right, only to be dished out back to his socially-engineered pet rocks as part of “credits”, “benefits” and “sure-fart” schemes.
What is also worth considering is that I suspect the UKIP will be deemed “illegal” by the EU soon, as UKIP do not subscribe to the consensus of the EU regime. Another example of the Law demanding “best practice” (best? says who?) If the Commission is stuffed with Eurobots then they need not refer to the domestic parties for guidance and motivation.
p.s. I suspect Cameron is shuffling the Conservative Party into a postition where it will retain validity under a future EU political landscape, i.e. as a UK branch of some centre-right coallition. To me it explains much and simultaneously reduces hope for him.
There’s nothing for it then. Time to raise the black flag, roll up our sleeves, and paint the town red. Honest attempts to change the system from within are futile as the system itself has been corrupted to serve the state. There is no other way this can be changed but through violent rebellion. Civil disobedience is not going to cut it any more.
Much as I respect you all and value your intelligence and opinion, intelligence and opinion are not enough, and maybe they never were.
To quote The Prodigy:
“There is something reassuring about UKIP’s naïveté and their belief that laws actually have purposes beyond power for the wielder.”
I don’t find that reassuring in the slightest! It merely shows that they do not understand what they are up against. This in turn makes me think that UKIP do not really understand what they are doing qua what is UKIP for? If anything, such naivete almost makes me despair at the impotence of political opposition from within the electoral system – as per GH’s comments above.
Disgruntled Tory voters seem to have been bypassing UKIP anyway and voting BNP
No, John, those are disgruntled Labour voters, if you look at where the BNP actually gets votes, and the shares of the other parties.
Disgruntled Tory voters sometimes go to UKIP and sometimes to LibDem, seldom elsewhere.
Nigel,
Why did our legislature make it that way?
Because that is the way that suited the Labour Party and the whips told the backbenchers to. Without looking I imagine the Tories abstained, because they couldn’t have won against the huge majority in the 97-01 parliament and would only have been accused of defending their own interests. Which is the worst possible sin in the one-party state.
….
No, having looked, the Tories did vote against, but the LibDems voted with the Government, for a majority of 229. Nonetheless parliament did make it so because it suited the Labour Party and that was the case because it served to restrict the financial resources of its opponents more than its own, and left its allies in the unions with an entirely free hand.
mike,
In most great legends, the hero doens’t know what he is getting himself into until he is committed.
‘Knowing’ and really understanding are two different things. I think UKIP now really understands. I don’t think that is a strike against their potential. It truly is hard to believe the truth sometimes but now they, and hopefully much of the electorate, understand.
As there is NO plan ‘B’ except for mandrill’s, the ‘hero’ needs all the help it can get. Calling them an idiot only puts them in the same boat as virtually the entire nation. Who really believes how bad things are? Frogs and kettles.
Guy,
I consider UK independence to be preliminary and preminent to domestic politics.
With unions running the country your in deep trouble and they might go the EU route anyway, with the EU running the country, there is no country.
Something to keep in mind is trade unions are often very nationalistic. Down the road it would be easier to defeat them if there is still a nation to fight over.
What really worries me about all this is that most people’s reaction will be that they “always thought there was something dodgy about that lot”. Hell, I support UKIP and I’m wondering myself.
Unless they come out fighting, and are absolutely certain there are no real skeletons in the closet, this will finish UKIP. Ordinary voters aren’t sure enough about them yet to leap to their defence. Most will assume they are the “rank amateurs” and “gadflies” they’ve been painted as, and that they’ve simply been found out.
I firmly believe the “Ordinary Voter” couldn’t find their backsides with both hands if they were given a map.
My experience from the people I talk to gives me the impression they are pretty thoroughly brainwashed by the state or are so short sighted they cannot see beyond the next pay day.
Put me down for the Guy Fawkes solution.
Regards
The Dude
Who are The Electoral Commission?
To “foster public confidence and participation in the democratic process”? WTF?! By bankrupting a small political party over a genuine (and venial) error? At a time when real electoral fraud is booming?!
I’m sure those conscientious public servants would welcome your “participation in the democratic process” at
info@electoralcommission.org.uk
I must confess that when I heard about this story (only a few days ago) I assumed that the money would be given back to the person who gave it – silly me.
Of course the state would want to steal the money, that is the nature of the beast.
As for the attack on the U.K.I.P. (which is far harder than any hit on the Lib Dems – they are not in danger of being bankrupted).
This was (I suppose) inevitable after the efforts by the powers-that-be (such as the Security Service) to infiltrate U.K.I.P. with racialists failed (due to a carefull watch being kept for such infiltrators).
Mr Cameron rather jumped the gun on the infiltration plan (calling U.K.I.P. “closet racists”), and looked rather silly when he could not back up his claims.
So another way had to be found to try and destroy U.K.I.P. – in order that established parties (especially the Conservative party) would be safe from it.
Does anyone really think that the B.B.C. (and the rest of the establishment) would be treating Mr Cameron and co with such respect (not just inviting them on television and radio shows giving them a chance to speak for as long as they like, and feeding them soft questions – but also, in every current affairs show, talking up the Conservative party as quite possibly the winner of the next election) IF THEY WERE ANY GOOD?
If Mr Cameron and co were any threat to the powers that be, they would be hit, hit and hit again.
There would be “exposures” of “racists” everywhere, confiscation of funds (and so on and so on).
That is why the next general election will be so pointless – even if the Conservative party wins the election, it is no longer Conservative so it does not matter. Any more than winning things like Kettering council or Northamptonshire county concil have mattered (the same leftist policies are followed as when the Labour party was in charge).
“But Mr Cameron will get rid of Regional Assemblies and stop I.D. cards – he has said so, time and again”.
Pull the other one, it has got bells on.
He will be told by Civil Servants (assuming he does not already know) that such things are E.U. policy.
Paul H,
It says “public confidence and participation in the democratic process“. That is, make people vote more, not give them a choice about who they vote for or whether they vote or not.
The Commission is only concerned with process not consequence.
Those who created it knew perfectly well the consequences of what they were doing, however. Its idiot terms of reference are perfectly designed to obstruct new players or innovative ideas and to protect the power of the incumbent. If it were given more money it would go ahead and destroy all the single issue campaigning organisations in the country too, by insisting that they be considered potentially regulated third parties at all times.
According to the explanatory notes of the PPERA 2000:
6. Part IV imposes restrictions on the sources of donations so as to prohibit foreign and anonymous donations to political parties and make registered parties subject to reporting requirements in respect of donations above a certain value.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/en2000/2000en41.htm
So not to stop a chap who has lived all his life in the UK, paid millions in tax and has been, at all other times, on the electoral register?
And not at all linked to the criticism (Link)given to the Electoral Commission only a couple of weeks ago in the Times about how they had completely failed to do their job over the cash for honours, cash for dinners and the £2.4million to the lib dems from a chap now in prison?
One would hope that “democratic process” might include the business of founding and supporting new parties, but I’ve a horrible feeling you’re right. Heaven help this country.
Well, the Guy Fawkes Solution’s still on the table… Maybe I’ll leave that one to Mandrill. My record with chemistry isn’t exactly inspiring.
Use “baldfaced lying” instead of “euphemistically disingenuous” would allow anyone to understand you.
It would be good for ordinary persons to be able to understand your arguments. They cannot if you use big words.
Annabelle,
Explanatory notes, like “Regulatory Impact Assessments”, “Race Equality Impact Assessments”, declarations of compatibility with the Human Rights Act and – I fear, though I’m providing evidence to one anyway – the new Public Bill Committees, are designed to discourage MPs from reading and thinking about the actual legislation they will be required to express the will of parliament concerning. They don’t have force of law. (Though I believe they have been cited Pepper v Hart-style for statutory interpretation.)
This idea that BNP voters are almost exclusively from the ranks of disgruntled Labour voters is false. Labour devotees often come up with the accusation that they are right-wing disaffected conservatives.
I voted conservative all my life, and would never consider voting Labour, ever, but I voted BNP in the 2005 Euros.
Perhaps I’m the only one eh?
The fact is, the conservative party vote is not made up totally of monolithic free-market libertarians, and the Labour party vote is not made up of hardened socialists.
Some Tories are social conservatives: the BNP promises them that. Some Labour voters don’t want to be shafted ( as they see it ) by unfettered laissez-faire capitalism: the BNP promises that too.
Never mind if it can deliver, never mind if the idea of conservatives voting for the BNP shatters your beliefs, just try and understand why the BNP can actually pick up votes from both sides of the spectrum.
Andy
I never said they were. I just said ‘more likely to’.
If the Tory party contains any free-market libertarians I would be surprised.
Both main parties are just radical centrist regulatory statists and they are largely interchangeable.
Hardly. That the crypto-fascist elements within other parties might decide to actually vote for the overt fascist party is no huge shock.
So you’re living in a duopoly. So what? Here in Australia we have a two-party system (with a few minor annoying middle-of-road parties to look good) and the sky didn’t fall in! That’s because we have a strong second chamber called the Senate, which often is controlled ny non-government parties. Perhaps you should be campaigning for an elected upper house, which could then block all government reform, leaving people to run their own lives.
OR you could emmigrate to Hutt River Province, a micro-state inside Western Australia which successfully declared independence in 1970, and settle in the province, then take over in a People’s Libertarian Revolution, and invite in lots of freedom-lovers from every continent on earth, to have an army large enough to keep it free.
nicholas – the situation is rather different in Australia. The majority of your regulations are not dictated by a power outside Australia – so your Parliament matters rather more than the United Kingdom Parliament does.
Here even local things (such as rubbish collection) are influenced by E.U. policy.
On Guy Herbert’s recent comments.
Yes, sadly correct. And showing a sound grasp of specific matters.
Qui bono? The presence of UKIP helps Labour at Westminster elections.
In reply to the question of Steve:
Supposedly the party that benefits from crushing the U.K.I.P. is the Conservative party. Although the U.K.I.P. had already stated that it would not put up a candidate against any Conservative M.P. who supported getting out of the E.U.
The powers-that-be (the B.B.C. various agencies and so on) are now quite happy with the David Cameron led Conservative party because they judge it is no longer any threat to the system (for example at “Prime Minister Question Time” today the only attack that Mr Cameron made on Mr Blair was that the Prime Minister had not spent enough taxpayers money on the N.H.S.). So they are quite happy to help the David Cameron led Conservative party.
However, it is quite possible that U.K.I.P. voters will just stay home (as many conservative minded people have done since Mrs Thatcher was back stabbed).
Of course the U.K.I.P. may come back – simply renaming itself the “Independence Party” (and be more carefull with the regulations on funding).
Perhaps this is the time for people of financial means to come forward – certainly influence would be easy to gain at this point.