Taxpayers Paid Parties To Prevent Illegal Donations
… and even though Labour took the £180,000 they were offered, they still broke electoral law.
It is absolutely disgraceful that even though they were given £183,052 by the Electoral Commission in order for “training staff in the duties imposed by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and was specifically for the party to prepare for its requirements on submitting accounts and declaring donations above £5,000.”
What annoys me most about this is that it is yet more taxpayers money being given to political parties, even if for a specific purpose. Parties shouldn’t need to be given this sort of money for them to sort out their own internal procedures to comply with the law. Companies don’t get given money to train staff and to prepare to meet its legal requirements, so why should political parties? Obviously the money they given cannot have been spent properly on doing this, or else the mistakes that led to “Donorgate” simply would not have happened.
Since they were given money from the taxpayer’s purse in order to comply with the law that they passed, it makes their acceptance of known illegal donations even less acceptable.
That all political parties have received this money as well means that for any of them to break the law is simply not good enough, and implies a lack of respect of the tax-paying electorate.
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They should be forced to return this money.