Ukip faces inquiry into abuse of party funds

[Chippiewill]

Nigel Farage faces an official inquiry into allegations that Ukip improperly diverted taxpayers’ money to fund its political operations.

Ukip staff were instructed to send invoices to a European body for work done in Britain. A whistleblower has told The Times that this meant that money was diverted back to the party’s headquarters, apparently against parliamentary rules.
The allegations are set to trigger an official “misuse-of-funds” investigation into Ukip before the critical European Parliament elections.

Mr Farage hopes that victory on May 22 will provide enough momentum for Ukip to achieve a breakthrough at the general election next year. That prospect, however, has brought greater scrutiny both of Ukip’s funding and its claim to be a political insurgency.

Ukip’s MEPs have received more than £2.4 million in allowances and expenses since their election in 2009, not including travel, despite having one of the worst attendance records of any party. However, the party’s alleged misuse of additional funds, which it receives as a member of a political grouping, the EFD, threatens to cause a huge embarrassment.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/p...cle4027006.ece
I hate to post something pay-walled but the daily mail are the only others running the story and I'd rather shoot myself.

Bit funny for UKIP to be the ones doing this.

Thoughts?

[GommeInc]

Isn't this old news that they swindle their expenses when it comes to being MEPs? Farage got called out for it a while ago. If I was a Ukip MEP I would take my EU expenses allowance, not turn up to parliament (which many MEPs across the EU rarely do anyway as they see it as a waste of time) in protest and donate it to worthy causes across the EU. You may as well use the money for needy people, seeing as the EU doesn't particularly care about the needy and is only really interested in businesses and generating wealth.

[Chippiewill]

This is different from MEP expenses. This is UKIP using funds specifically aimed at paying for EFD employees to pay for employees in their own press office.

[The Don]

I find it hilarious how UKIP supporters somehow justify the misuse of taxpayers funds using such a whimsy excuse as "trying to spread a message", Yeh, I'm sure they're not benefitting from it (sarcasm)... If literally any other group not related to UKIP did anything vaguely similar i'm sure the same UKIP supporters would be calling for them to be lynched.

[FlyingJesus]

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

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.ukip.org/newsroom/news/12...-for-the-party

“UKIP has been aware in recent weeks of relentless activity by Times journalists aiming to derail its rapid rise in popularity. This has included questioning about the private lives of party staff that would disgrace the now defunct News of The World.

“The Times is planning to run on Monday a series of claims that UKIP has breached the rules on using European parliamentary funds while campaigning to get Britain out of the EU.

“In fact UKIP has always worked hard to ensure that demarcations between EFD employees and party employees are properly observed. UKIP MEPs who donate to party funds do so out of their own post-tax salaries. UKIP MEPs work for withdrawal from the EU just as they promised the voters that they would when elected in 2009.

“It is clear that their success in advancing this agenda and increasing the popularity of the party has upset the political establishment and its media supporters.

“For the avoidance of doubt, UKIP MEPs are careful to observe European parliamentary rules when spending resources on advancing the goal of British withdrawal.

“UKIP has from the outset been the biggest constituent part of the EFD group and Nigel Farage is the group leader. It is wholly legitimate and within the rules for some EFD staff to work out of London and indeed staff from other groups that include other British political parties do the same.

“After the rapid growth of the party, UKIP has now put in place a bi-annual review as an extra check to ensure that staff responsibilities remain appropriately demarcated and that the actual work patterns of staff remain consistent.

“We anticipate being on the receiving end of a continued smear campaign from pro-EU journalists but will not allow it to deflect us from our mission to secure for the British people a vote on withdrawing from the EU and taking back powers of self-government and control of their borders.”

False story it appears to me.

If there is any truth in this story from the Times, then OLAF will be (rightly) on Ukip's case.

In terms of funding the party as the article states, Ukip MEPs do donate a large portion of their salaries to the party - perfectly legal. In terms of general EU funding which GommeInc (Ryan) alluded to, all parties with MEPs are entitled to use the 'allowances' system - which some tried to slur Farage with a few years ago by claiming he was personally benefitting from expenses rigging. He was not and if he was - as former Ukip MEP Tom Wise was - then OLAF would investigate and bring criminal charges.

The allowances system in the EU is there to be used to fund party staff, campaign literature and so on - all of which Ukip takes full advantage of, and so they should as it's Britain's money being claimed back.

[FlyingJesus]

Well that isn't true as was shown last time you tried to claim that they somehow don't benefit from huge salaries for jobs they don't attend and expenses they don't need

[-:Undertaker:-]

Well that isn't true as was shown last time you tried to claim that they somehow don't benefit from huge salaries for jobs they don't attend and expenses they don't need

Most of their salaries are donated back into the party - i'm not and have never been against MEPs being paid anyway or MPs, MEPs are paid the same as MPs are in any case. In regards to attendance, this has been talked about before - there's no point turning up to pointless voting on the standardisation of tractor seats (no, I didn't just make that up either). As the Editor of ConservativeHome said the other day:

Attacking UKIP for their MEPs not being enthusiastic participants in euro-legislating is a fool's game. Voters don't care about the EuroParl

Would I prefer Farage at home leading a campaign to get us out, or sitting in Brussels at pointless votes?

In any case, here's a Liberal Democrat trying this round of attack and being steamrolled by Helmer -

[FlyingJesus]

"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.

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

[Chippiewill]

In terms of funding the party as the article states, Ukip MEPs do donate a large portion of their salaries to the party - perfectly legal.

That's clearly not what's happening:

The whistleblower said: “I was paid by the EFD group in the European Parliament, even though I worked exclusively for UKIP in the UK. The money was paid into my bank account directly from the EFD group.”

UKIP employees were being paid directly from the EFD.