Tory Party faces record fine and maybe more

Op-ed: The long running but underreported saga of allegations that the Conservative Party broke election spending rules rolls on but there is some news.

Thursday there are reports that the Tory Party has been fined a record £70,000 by the Electoral Commission. That is a five figure sum fine for a six figure sum accounting error.

The electoral commission wants to be able to issue fines in the hundreds of thousands of pounds rather than tens but is not allowed to. That may now change.

Currently the maximum fine in each case is £20,000. An electoral commission spokesperson said at least one of the incidents the Tory party have been fined for warranted a much higher fine.

The Tory party has until April 13 to pay the fines and has said it will comply.

It will now be down to police investigating the allegations to determine if auditing errors were accidental or deliberate.

Last week unelected PM Theresa May and her government were allegedly worried about the investigation.

Will the fines have alleviated Tory worries?

Breaking electoral commission spending rules can result in jail time!

It can also in effect steal elections.

It's difficult to believe that the supposedly fiscally competent Tory Party could accidentally make such errors. They are hardly a new political party getting to grips with electoral rules and regulations.

Inaccurate expense recording by the Tory party was found in three 2014 by-elections and during the 2015 general election campaign; a general election that they won against the odds.

That leaves people questioning whether the Tory party won the 2015 general election by fair or foul means.

Certainly news that the electoral commission says the Tory party was uncooperative with the investigation rings alarm bells.

Why were they to quote, guilty of unreasonably uncooperative conduct?

Thursday ITV news reports;

The investigation found:

• - £104,765 of payments were missing from the 2015 general election spending return
• - Separately, up to £118,124 was either not reported or was inaccurately reported
• - 81 payments to the value of £52,924 were missing the required invoices or receipts
• - At least some of the reported £38,996 Battlebus expenditure should have counted towards candidates' budgets, rather than counted as party spending
• - £63,486.83 of Battlebus expenditure was not included in the report due to "human error"
• - Records explaining the amounts invoiced to candidates were not maintained

Are there some deliberate auditing errors now classed as part of the campaign to win an election and worth the risk?

Other parties have faced lesser fines for errors but the Tory party appears to have carried out widespread election misspending since 2014.

The rules established by Parliament for political parties and their finances are there to ensure transparency and accountability.

Where the rules are not followed, it undermines voters’ confidence in our democratic processes, which is why political parties need to take their responsibilities under the legislation seriously.

This is the third investigation we have recently concluded where the largest political parties have failed to report up to six figure sums following major elections, and have been fined as a result.

There is a risk that some political parties might come to view the payment of these fines as a cost of doing business.
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The Commission therefore needs to be able to impose sanctions that are proportionate to the levels of spending now routinely handled by parties and campaigners.

– SIR JOHN HOLMES, ELECTORAL COMMISSION CHAIRMAN

Updates as available.

Full Electoral Commission announcement and background to allegations

Full ITV report here

​http://www.onewomansomanyblogs.com/news/files-sent-to-cps-re-allegations-election-misspending