Britain’s top five political parties, including Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, have reportedly received illegal donations (Photo: AFP)
Ahead of the UK general election, a media investigation has found that five of Britain’s six political parties have received illegal foreign donations.
According to UK law, only people on the UK electoral roll can donate. The minimum donation is £500. The law requires political parties to return undue donations within 30 days and to report failure to do so to the Electoral Commission. These rules are intended to curb undue influence of foreigners in UK politics.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) reported that five of the six major UK political parties had received donations that breached these regulations – the Conservative Party, Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and the Scottish National Party (SNP). The parties were unable to block these donations or find and return them as requested.
The report found that only the Labour Party realised the donations were illegal and blocked them, as required by law.
The UK general election is scheduled for July 4th. All opinion polls so far have predicted a comfortable Labour victory, bringing to an end 14 years of Conservative rule.
Why British political parties failed to check foreign donations
The TBIJ said it had asked overseas people who were neither resident in the UK nor on the electoral roll to make a series of payments to the six main political parties, each of which was less than £500 but totalled more than £500.
Payments were reportedly made from foreign bank cards through the websites of these parties.
The donations were illegal because they were below the minimum permitted amount of £500 and were made by people who were not on the UK electoral roll.
The report said all political parties except Labour had failed to block or return these donations.
The UK Electoral Commission has specifically told political parties to be wary of multiple small payments totalling more than a £500 threshold – a strategy employed by TBIJ in its investigation. The commission said political parties should keep records so they can “verify whether multiple donations are not coming from the same source”.
“Self-regulation of political donations has never worked.”
Responding to TBIJ’s findings, election law expert Gavin Miller said that while the law allows political parties to self-regulate their donations, such a system has never worked.
“The system for self-monitoring these donations has never really worked; it’s up to the recipients to verify,” Miller told TBJIJ.
Miller said parties who don’t pay attention to or report such “scams” are violating the spirit of the law and risk violating the law itself and becoming parties to the donor’s crime. He added that a system that allows such donations is “absurd.”
“They close their eyes, [it is] That’s not our job, but this [show] “How absurd that the beneficiaries of money should be policing the system,” Miller said.
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