Ukip faces inquiry into abuse of party funds

[-:Undertaker:-]

"Voters don't care about the EuroParl" what a lovely sentiment, if only it were universally true. 33 of the UK's MEPs are supposed Eurosceptics (if we count all of the non-inscrits as Eurosceptics which to be fair they probably are) and the remaining 31 are pro-Europe, so quite clearly a lot of the voters do care. Either way, if you take a job you are expected to actually do it and not sit around pretending you know better than the role that's been defined for you. No-one else in the public sector can sit at home making posters and still collect their salary.

Uh, yes they can - Sinn Fein do in regards to the House of Commons, they don't sit based on their principle that British sovereignty in Northern Ireland isn't legit. Ukip faced this question years ago whether to do what Sinn Fein do and boycott the 'parliament' or whether to cause trouble there - they choose to cause trouble with the odd speech and voting.

People who vote Ukip are voting to leave the EU, they don't want to build Europe with directives and regulations on the standardisation of tractor seats & the harmonisation of financial regulations+taxation. I vote Ukip in the European elections specifically to make the campaign at home stronger - which is how we will get out. We will not get out by Nigel Farage spending most of his time over in France and Belgium in what is a mickey mouse parliament. We will get out (and thus make him redundant) by he and others holding public meetings around the country - something that real politicians used to do many years ago.

If you want your MEPs to 'build Europe' then vote LibLabCon.

Also it's not just salaries that UKIP take without working - £420,000 in one year on hotels and meals (despite not going to meetings), £35,635 on average per member on "general expenditure" which doesn't seem to require itemisation, and employing their wives as supposed secretaries in order to keep the expense allowances in their own households. Well aware that the other parties all do the exact same thing but when UKIP are pretending to be different it's certainly cause for scrutiny.

All of which is entirely legal and which funds things like campaign information, leaflets, offices, office staff and so on - which every political party does. If we can use some of the money we pay into the EU to fund a campaign giving the other side, then that's fine with me. But in any case I am against the funding of political parties, i'm against MEPs even existing and i'm against the EU. But as it stands, Ukip may aswell take the money on offer to help our cause.

The allowances system is corrupt and overly generous yes, but we may aswell use it.

All of that AND this new problem of using money that comes with specific uses for something far different. Tut tut.

Then let's see what OLAF say. So far these are only allegations.

That's clearly not what's happening:

UKIP employees were being paid directly from the EFD.

..so the allegations say. Again, let's see if OLAF manage to prove these allegations. After all, all the accounts for MEPs are audited every year and they haven't been found doing anything wrong.

[FlyingJesus]

Your fanatical allegiance to a group of people who use taxpayer money for personal gain and thus aren't genuinely going to want to cut off their own salaries by leaving Europe is cute. Your inability to actually respond to the points that have been made and instead bat them aside and talk about something else is not so cute.

[GommeInc]

Hands up anyone that's actually surprised. It's a game they all play and by the time they get found out the damage is done and the criminals have already enjoyed the fruits of their fraud which is why none of them turn down the opportunity

I'd be amazed if any politician didn't. In this day and age it comes with the title. It's like a Royal scandal involving sex outside of marriage or some other story which isn't surprising any more

[-:Undertaker:-]

Your fanatical allegiance to a group of people who use taxpayer money for personal gain and thus aren't genuinely going to want to cut off their own salaries by leaving Europe is cute. Your inability to actually respond to the points that have been made and instead bat them aside and talk about something else is not so cute.

They aren't personally gaining though, that is a lie. You seem to be confusing EU allowances with British expenses when they are two totally different things, hence the short response. The personal wages of the Ukip MEPs are mostly handed over to the party, the allowances system is spent on the party (which is what it is for) and not going into their pockets. A Ukip MEP did once fiddle the expenses to personally benefit himself (Tom Wise) and he was expelled from the party instantly and faced criminal charges. The sooner Ukip, Tory, Labour, Green, BNP, SNP and Liberal Democrat MEPs are all fired is the day Ukip will have completed it's raison d'etre. Indeed if anything, most of the Ukip MEPs have actually not only donated their wages to the party/campaigning but have also donated extra money on top of that which they earnt when working in real jobs. Godfrey Bloom spent tens of thousands of his own cash in Yorkshire over a decade.

If they are on the gravytrain and are committing fraud then OLAF will come down on them - something the EU would jump at if it had the chance. Again, all this is simply allegations published in a Tory newspaper before the Euro elections.

I am fanatical about getting my country's sovereignty back though, you're right there.

[FlyingJesus]

How on earth can you can claim that they don't gain personally from £420,000 worth of hotel bills, an average of ~£35,000 per person on unnamed general expenses (for a job they don't do), and putting their wives on payroll? There are more ways to abuse taxpayer money than carrying it out of a bank in a bag marked SWAG while dressed in black and white stripes

Many congratulations on once again talking about something completely different to the point you're supposedly refuting though, good show

[The Don]

How on earth can you can claim that they don't gain personally from £420,000 worth of hotel bills, an average of ~£35,000 per person on unnamed general expenses (for a job they don't do), and putting their wives on payroll? There are more ways to abuse taxpayer money than carrying it out of a bank in a bag marked SWAG while dressed in black and white stripes

Many congratulations on once again talking about something completely different to the point you're supposedly refuting though, good show

No, but you see they need all those hotels for the meetings they don't attend.

[Chippiewill]

Maybe Nigel actually likes being an MEP for the pay and only pretends to be euro-sceptic to justify not turning up for work.

[-:Undertaker:-]

How on earth can you can claim that they don't gain personally from £420,000 worth of hotel bills, an average of ~£35,000 per person on unnamed general expenses (for a job they don't do), and putting their wives on payroll? There are more ways to abuse taxpayer money than carrying it out of a bank in a bag marked SWAG while dressed in black and white stripes

Is that the party as a whole? Is that from all of the MEPs? It's like how it was claimed that Farage and Ukip had spent £2m on allowances....... which was true, over a ten year period on campaigning literature, office staff, offices, essentials and so on. That's standard, although it didn't stop the Guardian trying it on.

In terms of personally benefitting, all of the allowances money must be accounted for as far as I am aware and accounts are audited every year for the MEPs..... if Farage and Ukip were abusing the allowances system then there would be irregularities in the accounts submitted and it would become a criminal matter with OLAF involved. I think this was exactly the charge that former Ukip MEP (he was expelled immediately) Tom Wise was investigated and charged on.

You can disagree with the allowances system as I do, but you cannot claim that Farage and others are personally pocketing cash that is not from their wage payments of £70k a year.

Many congratulations on once again talking about something completely different to the point you're supposedly refuting though, good show

Or rather that's what happens whenever this topic is dragged up, people have a problem differentiating between the Westminster expenses system and the Brussels allowances one.

Maybe Nigel actually likes being an MEP for the pay and only pretends to be euro-sceptic to justify not turning up for work.

Yes, he left a high-salary job in the city to slave away on lower wages in politics. Right.

And again, the point has already been made on attendance - we don't expect Ukip politicians to turn up for pointless votes in Brussels. That's what the other lot believe in. We're more concerned about the domestic political front and campaigning in this country to convince Britons rather than Jose Barroso, hence why Ukip councillors have the highest attendance records of any of the main parties: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/p...cle3967236.ece

Ukip councillors lead the way in meetings

Ukip councillors have a better attendance rate than colleagues from any of the three main parties.

In findings likely to irritate the Conservatives, an analysis by The Times has revealed that its elected officials attended 92.4 per cent of compulsory meetings.

In second place were the Conservatives, on 88.6 per cent. Labour came next on 88.3 per cent, while the Lib Dems, famed for their local activism, trailed on 87.7.

[The Don]

Yes, he left a high-salary job in the city to slave away on lower wages in politics. Right.

I thought you keep saying he had a regular job like the average joe before politics?...

[-:Undertaker:-]

I thought you keep saying he had a regular job like the average joe before politics?...

Nope. My statement wasn't that he had a regular joe job, it was that at least he had a job before politics - unlike Clegg, Cameron and Miliband who have all been in political jobs since leaving university.

It's why I cringe in my politics classes that most of them hope to graduate and go straight into politics. Completely the wrong attitude to have and why our political class are so out of touch with the real world nowadays.