Monday 19 October 2009

Court of Appeal rules in favour of Electoral Commission

As reported in the media today, the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of the corrupt Electoral Commission and ordered Westminster Magistrates Court to change its ruling that UKIP only has to forfeit £18,481 of the £363,697 in impermissible donations received from Alan Bown.

The donations were found to be impermissible because Alan Bown was mysteriously removed from the electoral register without his knowledge and only put back on when he found that he wasn't on the register. Under a law designed to prevent foreigners from donating to UK political parties, donors who give more than £200 to a political party must be on the electoral register at the time of the donation to be legal.

The Electoral Commission insisted on a full forfeiture of the £363,697 but UKIP opted to go to court where the magistrate ruled that it was a genuine administrative oversight and ordered that only £18,481 be repayed. The Electoral Commission appealed and today the Court of Appeal ruled in their favour.

The Court of Appeal's judgement doesn't mean that Westminster Magistrates Court has to order a full forfeiture and there is always the option to appeal. There are certainly good grounds to appeal - the Lib Dims were found to have taken £2.4m in donations from someone not on the electoral register (who is currently in prison having been convicted of fraud) at around the same time but the Electoral Commission chose not to pursue them for the forfeiture of their impermissible donations.

UKIP is a relatively small party, punching above its weight and embarrassing the LibLabCon. The Electoral Commission is a corrupt quango and sockpuppet of the British government. Going after UKIP and ignoring the Lib Dims is contra bonos mores - so unfair that a reasonable man would never come to the same conclusion (see Wednesbury Unreasonableness).

The ironic thing is that the ultimate court of appeal is not the new "Supreme" Court (which isn't supreme at all) but an EU court and UKIP's continued existence as a party may lie in the hands of the corrupt, anti-democratic super-quango that it is trying to undermine.

In UKIP's 2008 accounts, no provision was put aside for the forfeiture because Alan Bown pledged to underwrite it as he accepted the blame for not being on the electoral register. If he still intends to cover the cost of the forfeiture - estimated to reach around £750k with costs - then there are going to be a lot of very disappointed UKIP hating politicians and civil servants looking for a new way to try and do away with the thorn in their side.

5 comments:

Steve Halden said...

£363,000 is a huge fine for anyone, but what was UKIP’s crime to be punished with this enormous fine.

This fine was for a tiny technical slip in the paperwork.

The only purpose served by this fine is to try to weaken opposition to the Lisbon Treaty.

But this will back-fire on this Labour Government.

The voters were promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and this fine will only stiffen the resolve of the voters, and make them 100 times more determined to have their promised referendum.

The fight-back starts here. I will send off £50 to UKIP today.

Who will follow me?

UKIP, Unit 1, King Charles Business Park, Old Newton Road, Heathfield, Newton Abbot TQ12 6UT

ukipwebmaster said...

Alan Bown is a good man and we need to help him and the party out.
Why don't we start an appeal to cover this? If every member donated £30, added together with donations from sympathetic members of the public we'd soon cover it.
If UKIP HO start the ball rolling my cheque will be in the post to them.
Any surplus could go towards the General election campaign.

Anonymous said...

How is is that Bown was removed from the electoral register.

It seem to me that the EU and Lib/Lab/Con will do anything to rid itself of UKIP.

I doubt this will affect UKIP's standing. People will support UKIP or other smaller parties because they are the only hope we have of extricating ourselves from the EU.

Anonymous said...

ukipwebmaster, I agree, and suggested something similar yesterday.

Fund-raising events might be more profitable, although donations would help.

Ted said...

I shall be making a donation online later today, I hope others follow no matter how small it may be.