Would you trust a ‘Fact
Checking’ service run by an organisation which falsified its accounts?
Hope not Hate chief Nick Lowles announced yesterday that
they are starting a ‘fact-checking’ service called 'Dispel' to "challenge, probe and analyse the growing threat, and lies, posed by and from the radical and populist right". Perhaps they should begin with a less grandiose ambition and start by looking at the
accounts they presented to the Electoral Commission following the European
Election in 2014.
Under electoral law, as a registered third party Hope not
Hate were permitted to spend a total of £195,759 across the UK. They declared a
total spend of only £129,894.04[i],
and yet somehow this included an 8-page wrap on 761,000 copies of the Daily
Mirror.
Their invoices which are filed with the Electoral Commission
show they paid only £ 54,434 for this - £ 30,434 for printing[ii]
and £24,000 for distribution[iii].
And yet the Daily Mirror’s rate card for advertising shows that the normal
price for a 4 page wrap is £ 220,000 plus VAT[iv] (£264,000 total),
which equates to £68,241 more than their total permitted electoral spend just
for that single item or £209,566 more than the declared cost.
Under the terms of Schedule 11 Section 2(a), (c) & (e)
of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000[v]
the £209,566.00 should be regarded as a gift or donation (goods or services
provided below market rate) and should have been registered with the Electoral
Commission at the £ 264,000 figure.
According to UK VAT legislation, VAT on donations is still liable at their standard market rate. By the Daily Mirror issuing invoices for only £54,434 including £ 4,000 of VAT, they helped Hope not Hate evade a VAT liability in the order of £34,000 - VAT on £220,000 is a further £ 44,000, although the printing is VAT free.
That is bad, but it is not all. Hope not Hate also ‘forgot’ to include their monthly
consultancy fees paid to US campaigners Blue State Digital in January and
February which amounted to a further £8761.74 + VAT, or a total of £10,514.09
(as per their invoice for May[vi]).
When these figures are added to Hope not Hate’s declared expenditure of
£129,894.04, they give a total expenditure of £ 349,974.14 for an
under-declaration of £220,080.10 contrary to Section 94 of the Political
Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000[vii].
This figure
also raises another point. Controlled expenditure over £250,000.00 requires a
report prepared by an auditor in respect of expenditure reports submitted under
Section 96 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. This
has not been done, and the submission of unaudited accounts for sums exceeding
£250,000.00 is contrary to Section 97 of the same Act[viii].
To prevent
this getting too long, we will return another day to various other offences
contained within their accounts. Failure to Appoint Auditors, Exceeding
Spending Limits for Registered Third Parties, VAT Evasion and False Accounting will do for
today.
The only
question which remains to be asked is “would you trust a fact-checking service
run by people who are guilty of these criminal offences?”
[i] http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Search/Spending?currentPage=1&rows=10&query=hope%20not%20hate&sort=DateIncurred&order=desc&tab=1&et=tp&evt=europeanparliament&ev=410&optCols=CampaigningName&optCols=ExpenseCategoryName&optCols=FullAddress&optCols=AmountInEngland&optCols=AmountInScotland&optCols=AmountInWales&optCols=AmountInNorthernIreland&optCols=DateOfClaimForPayment&optCols=DatePaid
