Hain is trying to spin his way out of trouble claiming that the conference he has organised is not an official Labour Party event. It is quite clear that it is a Labour Party supporting event and attended by party members and their German allies.

He is therefore in receipt of declarable benefit in kind under Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Part IV Control of donations to registered parties and their members etc.
Chapter I Donations to registered parties
Donations for purposes of Part IV

51 Sponsorship

(1) For the purposes of this Part sponsorship is provided in relation to a registered party if—

(a) any money or other property is transferred to the party or to any person for the benefit of the party, and

(b) the purpose (or one of the purposes) of the transfer is (or must, having regard to all the circumstances, reasonably be assumed to be)—

(i) to help the party with meeting, or to meet, to any extent any defined expenses incurred or to be incurred by or on behalf of the party, or

(ii) to secure that to any extent any such expenses are not so incurred.

(2) In subsection (1) “defined expenses” means expenses in connection with—

(a) any conference, meeting or other event organised by or on behalf of the party;

(b) the preparation, production or dissemination of any publication by or on behalf of the party; or

(c) any study or research organised by or on behalf of the party.

Clearly if only the Labour Party is benefiting from this conference it is a declarable donation. The Bevan Foundation took the view that it was a party political event and withdrew – quite rightly.

Hain can try to argue differently until he is blue (rather than orange) in the face, here is the evidence of the conference agenda that shows that when Hain told local reporters “This is not a Labour Party event” yesterday, he was lying:

Get your own at Scribd or explore others:

It is clear that the purpose of the event is to assist the Labour Party, it is designed to help the Labour Party win and concerned only with helping Labour secure power in Wales. Hain is breaking the terms of the Act in organising this by accepting a donation from an inpermissable donor.