Ukip will be asked by the EU to pay back almost £150,000 in ‘misspent funds’ trying to get Nigel Farage elected as an MP
Party accused of breaking European rules that ban spending money on national campaigns and referendums
UKIP will be asked to give back almost £150,000 to the EU after being accused of misspending funds trying to get Nigel Farage elected to the House of Commons.
The party is accused of breaking European rules that bansspending the cash on national campaigns and referendums.
A leaked European parliament audit report says the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, a Ukip-dominated political vehicle, spent EU funds on polling before the 2015 general election and the EU referendum.
It also paid for staffing and analysis in constituencies it was targeting, including South Thanet, the seat Mr Farage failed to win last May.
It will be asked to repay €173,000 (£148,000) in wrongly spent cash and then denied a further €501,000 (£430,000) in EU grants.
“These services were not in the interest of the European party, which could neither be involved in the national elections nor in the referendum on national level,” concluded the parliament’s finance watchdog.
“The constituencies selected for many of the polls underline that the polling was conducted in the interest of Ukip.”
The report, seen by the , stated: “The administration discovered a substantial number of activities for which financing ought to be considered as non-eligible expenditure.”
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Ukip rejected allegations it had broken EU rules, with a spokesman saying: “We have abided by the rules at all times.”
But it is further bad news for the finances of the party, as the report suggests the ADDE would go bankrupt without these funds.
If the report is approved the ADDE will be asked “to propose measures for financial improvement” within a month.
It will be presented to the European parliament’s most senior MEPs at a closed session on Monday night in Strasbourg, but the committee, chaired by European parliament president, Martin Schulz, is expected to approve the request for repayment.
A Ukip spokesman rejected the report’s central claim, saying: “We have been scrupulously careful and we have abided by the rules at all times.”
He also questioned the timing of the report, saying it was “odd” it had been leaked to the media before Ukip or the ADDE group had seen it.
A spokesman for the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe said they would be taking the matter to court.
They said: “The parliament administration has for months taken an aggressive and hostile attitude over the audit, amounting to nothing short of deliberate harassment.
“We have responded to their queries with a mass of information and explanation justifying our activities and expenditure.
“They have simply ignored our submissions and in several cases these submissions having been made repeatedly on their request.
“They have broadened the definition of ‘expenditure supporting a political party’ so widely as to deny us the right to undertake any activity which might be remotely interesting to ADDE members.”
