UKIP finances: setting the record straight

Poor Trixy was woken up this morning by someone informing her that the Sunday Telegraph had written that UKIP was being investigated for dodgy finances. I knew they were writing a piece; my contacts in the party had told me how shocked they were at how little the journalist actually knew about the funding of political parties. For example, he didn't actually realise that parties with MPs in Westminster are already on the public slush fund and have been for many years.

So, to set the record straight:

1) UKIP filed the accounts 6 months late, with the permission of the Electoral Commission, as the position of party treasurer changed hands a few months ago, during which time it became the end of the financial year. Both men were part time working for the party and full time chartered accountants. The new party treasurer had to not only file the accounts, but catch up with the party records from the previous administration in a very short space of time and run his business during the busiest time.

2) Most of the financing for UKIP, particularly during elections, comes from individials. As the paper admits, a party does not have to register donations from individuals to the party if they are under £5000 or to regional offices if they are under £1000. UKIP is a grass roots party. People give us whatever they can afford, whether it be £5 or £100 or £10000. They do this because they genuinely believe in what the party stands for. The only personal gain they stand to make that there will be a political party in this country who believes in Independence.

There is the incentive in larger parties for people to give huge amounts of money because, as we have seen with the 'loans for peerages', they could stand to benefit on a personal level. That is not a view people take with UKIP. They give what they can to free Britain from the constraints of the EU and our statist government. The journalists should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for attacking those well meaning people for doing something they believe in.

For instance, Ukip's south-east office received donations of £291,000 in 2004, more than twice as much as the party's head office. Yet some £280,000 did not need to be declared because it consisted of individual donations of less than £1,000 each.

Notice that? They didn't need to. That's not UKIP making up the rules, or breaking the rules. That's the party following the rules and being different from others because it has the support of normal, everyday people.

2004: European Election time. If you want out of the EU, who would you donate some money to? Labour, Lib Dems? The Tories?

No, you'd donate it to UKIP because they are the only party who wants to restore Independence to Britain. And they did, in their thousands because they wanted to, and they felt they needed to and consequently, we beat the Lib Dems into third place.

The Sunday Cameron may not like that (they did, after all, censure Booker who is the paper's best journalist) but it's true. UKIP doesn't have lobotomised, tribal followers. It is supported by people who care deeply and passionately about this country and if the Sunday Cameron thinks this is some kind of financial irregularity, then that says far more about them than it does about UKIP.

3) Investigations by the Electoral Commission.

Yes, these were things like 'can you clarify the post code of x as we don't have them registered at that address.

oooOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhh

Honestly.