Reform chairman Lee Anderson has written to Electoral Commission (EC) CEO Vijay Rangarajan over the watchdog’s review of campaign spending limits, accusing Rangarajan of prejudging the outcome and threatening to take legal action. A judicial review on the cards…
The letter follows Rangarajan’s Sunday Times interview last week, in which he said:
“Trust in elections depends on people believing that the rules are fair and transparent, and how much parties and campaigners can spend is a significant part of that picture. Funding is essential to democratic participation and political debate, but the framework must give voters confidence that our elections are being contested on a level playing field.”
It ran a week after Reform banked the £72 million from Harborne and Delo, and Anderson notes the same comments were then copied verbatim into an official Commission statement two days later. Anderson says:
The suggestion that the current framework of funding is contrary to voters confidence in the integrity of elections (conveyed by the use of “but” as a conjunction) poses serious questions as to the impartiality of The Electoral Commission’s review.
The EC’s review was prompted by an August letter from Louise Haigh and Angela Rayner telling the Commission that spending limits “are too high, and ought to be reduced“. It’s war…
Read Anderson’s full letter below:
Continue reading “EXC: Reform Threatens Electoral Commission With Legal Action Over Funding Row”
New figures from the Electoral Commission show that political parties reported £17.09 million in donations and public funds in the second quarter of the year. That is up 51% on the £11.35 million in Q2 2025, but down 30% on the £24.51 million in Q1 2026…
Entrepreneur Ben Delo alone gave Reform £4 million in two donations. The Tories raked in £4.04 million, £1.23 million of which was public funds (Short Money and similar). Labour donors Sainsbury, Lubner, and Mosawi gave £550,000 to £650,000 each with £238,625 from Unite. Restore Britain posted £250,000, all from Cade Hill Investments, outraising the Greens and Plaid…
The Electoral Commission has published the full accounts of all parties for 2025. Here are the results for membership and donation income, compared with (election year) 2024.
A predictable collapse in donations for Labour, a surge for Reform, and a decline for the Tories. All to play for heading towards the next election – it’s donations season…
The Electoral Commission has published its party donation data for Q4 2025. Reform dominated at £5,456,000 entirely in private donations, largely thanks to crypto investor Christopher Harborne handing the party a massive £3 million in November. The Tories, by comparison, took a total of £4,016,181, but only £2,401,452 of that was private donations while £1,614,729 came from public funds. Over 40% of their total….
Labour received a total of £1,975,660. The LibDems actually beat them, taking in a grand total of £2,063,312, albeit with £749,173 coming from public cash…
Read the full data below:
Continue reading “Reform Rakes in £5.4 Million as Crypto Boost Leaves Tories Trailing”
The Electoral Commission has fired a warning shot at Labour after the government after it wrote to 63 councils asking them if they wanted to delay their local elections for another year. 9 million people without a vote…
The quango said today:
“We are disappointed by both the timing and substance of the statement. Scheduled elections should as a rule go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances. We are concerned by the possibility of some council elections in May being postponed, and even more by any further postponement to those which already had been deferred from 2025…
As a matter of principle, we do not think that capacity constraints are a legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections. Extending existing mandates risks affecting the legitimacy of local decision making and damaging public confidence. There is a clear conflict of interest in asking existing Councils to decide how long it will be before they are answerable to voters.”
Again – imagine if a right-of-centre government tried to do this…
The Electoral Commission’s explanation for letting off McSweeney is as follows:
“Under schedule 19B, paragraph 13(3) PPERA, a person who knowingly or recklessly provides false information in purported compliance with a requirement imposed under or by virtue of this Schedule, commits an offence.
We encourage all regulated entities to engage with us in an open and transparent manner, including during our investigation processes. This offence only applies where we have used our investigatory powers under Schedule 19B PPERA. Our investigation was conducted on a voluntary basis. This means we did not make use of these powers to compel compliance with any requirement imposed under or by virtue of Schedule 19B PPERA, including the use of any type of disclosure or investigation notice to compel information and explanation.”
So because the Electoral Commission was performing an ad hoc review there was no possibility of an offence for providing false information knowingly. Wonder who decided to go that way…
UPDATE: Kevin Hollinrake MP, Conservative Party Chairman, said:
“The Electoral Commission’s decision not to investigate McSweeney is wrong. The Commission must now publish all of their Morgan McSweeney Files to ensure the public has full transparency. It is clear that Morgan McSweeney deceived the Electoral Commission, but has dodged a criminal offence on a technicality. This loophole won’t wash. This is not over, we will continue to reveal more evidence, and continue to push for a full investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into Keir Starmer.”
Mail commentator Dan Hodges – who was kind to Burnham during the Makerfield campaign – now concludes: “The truth is Andy Burnham doesn’t have a 10 year plan. He’s barely got a 10 week plan.“