UKIP Supreme Court judgment analysis

For those of you looking for more information on last week’s Supreme Court judgment on UKIP party funding (see our previous post), we have been sent an interesting analysis of the judgment from Lucy Colter at Four New Square Chambers.

Patrick Lawrence Q.C. and Can Yeginsu, also of Four New Square, appeared for UKIP. The judgment was only of tangential importance in respect of human rights, but Coulter addresses this towards the end of her article. The main point was that a court in future would have leeway as to how much it could order a party to forfeit. As such, the court was satisfied that the party funding legislation is sufficiently flexible so as not to contravene human rights law:

UKIP can keep donation despite breach of party funding rules

An appropriate logo

The Supreme Court has narrowly held that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) can keep nearly all of a £349,216 donation despite the donor not being a permissible donor at the time of receipt, contrary to party funding rules under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

The Supreme Court upheld an order originally made at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court to the effect that the party only had to give back a small proportion of the money. UKIP will now only have to forfeit £14,481, rather than the full amount. According to the BBC, this will save the party from financial ruin. We will have more detail on the decision, which was by a narrow 4-3 majority, soon. In the meantime, the Supreme Court press summary can be found here, and is reproduced below.