Local Tories challenged over funding

9.00.00am GMT Mon 18th Jan 2010

Exeter Conservative Party should come clean on whether they are being bankrolled by non-domicile Lord Ashcroft says Graham Oakes.

Lord Ashcroft is pumping millions of pounds of his own money into the marginal seats in an attempt to buy the election.

The Electoral Commission is investigating donations to the Conservative Party made via a company called Bearwood Corporate Services. Lord Ashcroft is unable to make direct donations as he is not on the electoral register. So far Bearwood have handed over £3,000,000 to the Tories. If the commission decide the funding is inadmissible then the Conservatives will need to pay the money to the Treasury.

Graham Oakes said: "We need to know if the local Tories are being funded by Lord Ashcroft and how much they have received over the past couple of years."

"It is wrong that one man who chooses not to pay British taxes or to vote here should be able to distort the outcome of the forthcoming General Election. "

"If he has put in significant amounts of his own money into the Tories he is, in effect, trying to create a number of rotten boroughs and a tied M.P.s."

"Election results since 2005 have shown that all three parties could win the new Exeter seat, with Labour now third. Funding for all the candidates must be fair and legal."

The Electoral Commission must complete its investigation into Lord Ashcroft before the General Election or seats like Exeter might need to be re-run, - even if the Tories lose.

"This is a strong argument for state funding of political parties as that would prevent one man being able to have his own group of MPs that he has funded."