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Electoral Fraud investigation

(206 Posts)
JessM Sun 08-May-16 19:44:15

Not sure that this has had much coverage but it's a potentially explosive issue in Westminster. It's alleged that, during the 2015 campaign, the Tory party failed to account properly for expenditure. There are strict spending limits per candidate and they are supposed to declare everything. The allegation is that Tory central office bussed in squads of activists to work on behalf of local candidates and that the expenditure on hotel bills etc was not shown on the constituency accounts.
Grant Shapps was in charge of the bus full of activists - joint party chairman at the time. He has recently said that accounting for the expenditure was not his responsibility - thus passing the blame on to the current party chairman.
See this article for the constituencies which might be involved.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eight-police-forces-launch-investigations-into-tory-general-election-2015-fraud-accusations-a7017976.html

MaizieD Thu 17-Nov-16 19:24:33

The UKIP misspending story:

"Nigel Farage’s party broke spending rules by diverting taxpayers’ cash to its own polling ahead of the EU referendum and in key target constituencies for last year’s general election.

EU funding is meant to be spent on a party’s activities at a European level, not on financing domestic campaigns."

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-ukip-eu-money-misspending-eu-referendum-campaign-a7422471.html

daphnedill Thu 17-Nov-16 19:28:01

@dj

UKIP Twitterers have been accusing Carswell of duplicity for ages. Farage and Arron Banks hate him and have been trying to oust him. He upset Farage by not accepting a considerable amoyt of money from the EU (can't remember ecatly how much it was - about a £million?) for administrative expenses. Carswell's argument was that he didn't need it, because he was the only UKIP MP, so turned it down. Farage was furious.

Carswell is a strange character and I don't really understand why he defected to UKIP. He certainly doesn't share their narrow-minded ideals, especially over immigration. He's an ultra-libertarian, which includes having complete freedom of movement for workers. He's against the EU, because he sees it as restricting total free trade. He's generally against workers' rights and would like to see the UK turned into a bigger version of Singapore. He couldn't care less about the 'left behinders' in globalisation, who are the voters UKIP tends to attract.

daphnedill Thu 17-Nov-16 19:28:47

Typo alert...amoyt = amount

durhamjen Wed 07-Dec-16 23:27:07

Libdems been fined £20,000 for not declaring election expenses.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/07/lib-dems-fined-20000-for-undeclared-election-spending

Isn't it time we heard more about the Tory fraud investigation?

Nandalot Thu 08-Dec-16 18:51:52

Quite agree. I thought there were queries about lots of their constituencies.
I am wondering what they have spent in our constituency which has elections today. We have been bombarded with their leaflets through the post.