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further details to come later but it is a lovely day out & UKIP become ever less significant in domestic politics as they have zero MPs and little hope of ever getting any and very few councillors out of the many 1,000s in the UK; of the 149 elected a significant number have jumped ship many on the grounds of overt stupidity others due to their racist views and yet others even some in office still are marginalised by their criminality – not to mention those who have fallen out or seen through UKIP’s leader & his claque!
Don’t forget Nigel Farage, Graham Booth, Stuart Agnew, David Bannerman, Jeffrey Titford, Mike Nattrass, Derek Clark, John Wittacker, Mark Croucher, Tom Wise & various Councillors have fallen foul of British Courts regarding money or have been forced to repay substantial sums of tax payers’ money perloined from the EU or have been investigated by OLAF and either found guilty or at least not exhonourated!
Nigel Farage is hoping for a breakthrough at the general election next year
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Nigel Farage is hoping for a breakthrough at the general election next year PA
Rachel Sylvester, Alice Thomson and Francis Elliott
Last updated at 12:01AM, March 8 2014
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.
European Parliament rules state that public money paid to fund Europe-wide political groups such as the EFD may not “be used to finance political parties at national and European level”. However, a former member of the Ukip press office in London claimed that staff were instructed to invoice the EFD group in Brussels. 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.”
The whistleblower knew of three other people paid in this way, even though they too worked only for the national party. “It was my understanding that the press office had been funded this way for some time and continued to be so after I left.”
The Times has seen evidence that two other members of Ukip staff were paid directly from EU funds in 2012 and 2013. The Vice-President of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott, said that he was referring the evidence of alleged misuse to its governing body, the Bureau, which meets on Monday.
“This appears to be a misuse of funds, which would be improper,” Mr Macmillan-Scott, a Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire and Humberside, said.
“I will raise this with the Bureau and ask the relevant authorities to look into it. On the face of it, it looks as though this contravenes the rules of the European Parliament. This is taxpayer’s money and should not be diverted to political parties, in the UK or anywhere else,” he said.
“This is a party which promised to be transparent and not to use slush funds. This looks like double standards and needs to be investigated before the European elections so that the public can make up their mind.”
Ukip said in a statement last night: “Ukip MEPs are careful to observe European parliamentary rules when spending resources on advancing the goal of British withdrawal. Ukip has always worked hard to ensure that demarcations between EFD employees and party employees are properly observed. Ukip MEPs work for withdrawal from the EU just as they promised the voters that they would when elected in 2009.
“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.”
If it is found to have broken the rules, Ukip may have to pay back the cash. Two years ago two MEPs had to return £37,000 that they had improperly diverted to national party workers.
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