Saturday, 21st November 2009

A major donor to the UK  Independence Party has hit out at the Electoral Commission over its decision to push UKIP for the return of a £360,000 donation while allowing the Lib Dems to keep £2.4 million given to them by a criminal now on the run.

Former Tory donor and spread betting millionaire Stuart Wheeler, who donated £100,000 to UKIP before the European elections said today: "I am not a member of UKIP but I do support them and this does not seem right.

"The Electoral Commission has now said it does not intend to take proceedings against the Liberal Democrats for the recovery of gifts totalling about £2.4 million pounds given to them by a company controlled by Michael Brown, a man who was not a permissible donor and who is now on the run, having been sentenced to seven years imprisonment.

"It is clear that the donation came from abroad and was therefore entirely against the spirit of the relevant legislation.

"But the Commission has decided to pursue UKIP for recovery of a donation given by somebody who could easily have made the donation through a permissible company and who would have been a permissible donor but for a purely technical slip which is acknowledged by the court to have been entirely inadvertent."

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