Michael Ashcroft: The Rules On Funding Parties Are Clearly Mad - So Let Voters Add Some Sanity

Writing for today's Times Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory Treasurer who rescued the Conservative Party from the financial ruins of the 1997 General Election campaign, has called for political parties to be able to "accept financial support — cash, benefits in kind and credit — from whomsoever they choose and without financial limit".

He criticises the existing rules governing party donations as nonsensical.  He highlights, for example, the fact that citizens of Gibraltar are only 'permissible donors' for the four months before a European election (in which they are entitled to vote) but that a "100 per cent foreign-owned, but UK-incorporated, company that has only foreign directors, none of whom has ever been to Britain, let alone speaks English" is permitted to donate to a British political party.  He also notes that Sinn Fein "is free to to receive money raised by republican sympathisers in the United States without restriction."

Lord Ashcroft calls for Britain's voters to decide whether a political party has been right to accept money from an overseas business person or a porn king, for example.  The political parties should be free to raise money from anyone they deem acceptable but must disclose any donations much more rapidly than at present:

"By allowing parties to take money from any quarter, so long as they are entirely open about whom is giving it, the onus would be on politicians to act reasonably and to exercise sound judgment. It would place an equal duty on the media to report donations responsibly.  But in the end, it will be down to Joe and Jo Public to judge. We should trust them. They usually get it right."

Comments

[Tom Greeves]

Lord Ashcroft is absolutely correct.

It is a grotesque infringement on freedom of speech to rein in people's spending. And political parties should not be funded by the State. I would consider it vile to have to fund the Labour or Liberal Democrat parties ("Short" money to fund an effective opposition is slightly different).

As for fears that big business can buy people's votes, that is absurd when people have free will and a secret ballot.

Good on you Lord A. And thanks for all the support you have given our Party.

[Derek]

I agree. Political parties must be able to get funding from private sources. If public funding was increased, this would be the death of proper democracy. Parties would have to jump through state controlled hoops. It would virtually prevent new parties from starting up. If a party cannot get enough support from its supporters, then it must change or die, that's democracy.

[Grateful Tory]

I want to say that I agree with what people have said about Lord Ashcroft. The vendetta pursued against him by Tom Baldwin and The Times was monstrous. Thank God we have businesspeople who believe in politics enough to give their money. LMA could have chosen a life of leisure but he chose public service. He helped to save the Conservative Party. I recommend that small gifts to political parties should receive charitable tax relief. That would encourage a broader donor base for political parties.

[petersmith]

He's a cunning old fox, Ashcroft. Always interesting to try to guess what he's going to do next. How is he going to fund the Conservative Party? How will he maintain control of his funding, and still be part of the system?