There has been much controversy recently over a donation of £18,500 registered by the Electoral Commission from the faux-Labour limited company ‘Labour Leave‘ to UKIP. If the money was a donation, then Labour Leave’s directors and the Labour MPs who are its ‘supporters’ have broken Labour rules and are subject to expulsion from the party.
As Vox Political reported on Monday one of those MPs, Kate Hoey, told the BBC’s Daily Politics show that the substantial sum was because Labour Leave had ‘shared a campaigning platform’ with UKIP and owed a share of the costs.
One of the SKWAWKBOX’s UKIP sources told this blog:
Labour Leave’s claim that they were paying their share of costs for the Referendum campaign simply isn’t credible.
If that were the case, the money would be paid to the Leave.EU campaign, not as a donation directly to UKIP as an political party. The reason the Electoral Commission has registered it as a donation is very simple – it’s a donation.
The only realistic way the money would be repaid to UKIP – as opposed to donated – would be if UKIP had paid out costs on behalf of Labour Leave – but Labour Leave has lots of cash via its multi-millionaire director and Leave enthusiast John Mills.
UKIP, on the other hand, has well-documented financial troubles going back years.
This blog will be contacting the Electoral Commission for comment tomorrow, but at the moment the assertion of the UKIP source looks more likely than Ms Hoey’s excuse for the transaction.
If proven to be a donation, all the MPs (Hoey, Frank Field and the awful John Mann) who support Labour Leave, along with its directors if they are members, would be liable to immediate expulsion from the Labour party.
As an aside, it’s worth noting that two of those three MPs were among the six Labour MPs who on Tuesday helped to vote down Chris Leslie’s amendment requiring a Commons vote on the government’s eventual Brexit deal, when all other Labour MPs and six Tories supported it, as the Telegraph’s live feed of the debate pointed out:
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Just k n e w it would be Field. The man’s a disgrace.
They should be drummed out of the party immediately. As if funding UKIP wasn’t bad enough, aligning to defeat a Labour amendment where there were Tory dissenters to the A50 bill is unforgivable.
Just read this and have to say it’s a difficult one being one of Kate Hoey’s constituents stuck between a rock and hard place. Vauxhall CLP is controlled by Progress. Progress would dearly love the excuse to deselect Hoey and not because of this latest ukip revelation but because she is the only Ltd restraint on the completely out of control uncooperative council that is Shambeth. If it weren’t for that and the fact they would only allow a Progress stooge shortlist I would happily call for it.
My own personal contact with her as a constituent was less than positive in fact it was bloody awful and I’ve often wondered why she is a Labour politician when she has some of the most odious views and opinions and is always happy to cosy up to right…literally. So as I said rock and a hard place.
I wonder what the outcome of this is though?