Uk Polital Parties : Funding Flashcards
Define party funding ?
The methods by which political parties raise money to finance their activities e.g.campaigning, advertising, policy research
Which are the two act that keep the campaign finance tightly regulated ?
-Political Parties, Election and Referendum Act 2000
-Political Parties and Elections Act 2009
What is the political parties, elections and referendums act 2000 ?
-under this act all political parties must register with the election commission and provide regular returns of their income and expenditure
How much can a party spend in the run-up to the election ?
-£30,000 per constituency
Give an example when a referendum / party was fined for breaking the rules ?
In 2018 Leave EU was fined £70,000 for breaches of electoral law
What is the Political and Elections Act 2009 ?
- this measure strengthens the provision of PPERA by increasing the powers of the electoral commissions and placing further requirements on parties and donors to clarify the source of donations
What a limitation to the politcal parties and elections act 2009 ?
While this laws regulates some of the funding that occurs, they do not tackle or resolve the thorny issue of how parties should be funded, some proposals have been seen as problematic
Which method is the fairest and most transparent method of funding ?
Membership subscription
What is a limitation to membership subscription ?
-the problem is that party memberships are not by themselves large enough to sustain the level of finance required to fund professionally run national campaigns, post ads on billboards and increasingly on social media, or organise effective policy research
What is another form of funding the party campaigns ?
Individual donors
Which individuals did Blair benefit from ?
-Bernie Eccelestone (chief executive of the formula one)
-Lord Sainsbury
Unde which PM the Labour Party has been heavily bankrolled by affiliated trade unions including GMB and Unite ?
Jeremy Corbyn
How much did the GMB and Unite donated to the Labour Party in 2019 ?
£3 million
How much have the Conservative Party raised from individual donars in the first week of the 2019 election campaign ?
-£5.67 million
-including £200,000 from Lubov Chernukhin the wife of a Russian business person
What other party has benefited from individual donation and who ?
The Brexit party were donated £2 million by Christopher Harbone in the 2019 campaign
What the main limitation in relaying in individual donors ?
The main problem with reliance on a few wealthy givers is obviously the potential for corruption and undue politcal influence and access
Name a labour example of this limitation ?
For example the well documented case in 1997 Bernie Eccelstone’s £1 million donation to labour led to some suggest that this was ‘repaid by a delay in the introduction of a ban on tobacco advertising in formula 1 motor racing
Name a conservative example to this limitation ?
Research by the independent media platform open democracy found that almost 20% of an elite group of leading Tory funders knows as the leaders group (open to those who donate in excess of £50,000) later received honours after donating to the party
Name an individual in the leader group that benefited of ‘cash for honours’ ?
One example was hedge fund manager Michael Farmer who had given more than £6.4 million to the party since 2010 and received a peerage
What is the final option for party funding ?
State fund based upon pence-per-vote or pence-per-member
What one way the state fund political campaigns ?
Parties can receive public funds through policy development grants (£2 million in total annually), which are available to parties with at least two sitting members of the House of Commons who have taken the oath of allegiance
Another way that the state funds politcal parties ?
They can also receive Short (commons) and Cranborne (lords) money, which is paid to opposition parties to help with the administrative work in providing effective scrutiny
How do parties receive indirect help ?
Through free television airtime for party election broadcasts, and free postage for one piece of campaign literature during elections
