Craig Mackinley MP interviewed under caution for 6 hours over election fraud allegations

Conservative MP, Craig Mackinlay, has been interviewed by Kent Police under caution for 6 hours as part of their investigation into alleged overspending in the last election.

Mackinlay is believed to be one of six Conservative MPs who face possible criminal charges and having their election result declared void for alleged fraudulent expenditure after Channel 4 found what it believed to be significant amounts of missing expenditure and expenditure wrongly declared against national campaigns rather than local.

The upshot of this is that several MPs are believed to have overspent by a considerable amount, breaking electoral law and giving themselves an unfair advantage. The South Thanet seat won by Mackinley was contested by Nigel Farage and the Conservatives threw the kitchen sink at it to stop him winning but in doing so it is alleged they overspent by as much as double the legal limit and hid the illegal expenses by claiming that people bussed in to the constituency or sent to work there full time on the campaign were actually working on their national campaign.