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Brown party faces police probe
30/11/2007 13:30 - (SA)
London - British police were set to begin on Friday an investigation into unlawful donations to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's governing Labour Party, in the latest blow to his beleaguered administration.
The Electoral Commission watchdog was to refer the probe into contributions from a businessman made via proxies, in breach of funding rules, to London's Metropolitan Police.
"The Commission has now decided to refer matters to the MPS for further investigation," said a spokesperson.
A spokesperson for Brown - who has himself admitted that the donations were "not lawfully declared" - said Labour would co-operate with the inquiry "fully and in every way".
The centre-left party is facing the prospect of a criminal probe into its funding methods for the second time in less than two years, following the "cash for honours" scandal that dogged the last year of Tony Blair's premiership.
The funding row started on Sunday, when a newspaper revealed that property developer David Abrahams gave over £600 000 to Labour through four friends or associates.
Plot has rapidly thickened
The plot has rapidly thickened since as more revelations emerge as to who knew what and when, and whether they did anything about it.
On Thursday matters worsened for Brown when Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman, who accepted a donation from Adams proxy Janet Kidd, said it was Brown's campaign co-ordinator who recommended she did so.
"Gordon Brown had absolutely no knowledge of any inappropriate connection between Mr Abrahams and Mrs Kidd," Justice Secretary Jack Straw told BBC radio on Friday.
"For sure, at the centre of the Labour Party... there were people who were aware of an inappropriate relationship between these two individuals."
It was "wholly wrong to imply that any of the rest of us had any grounds for suspicion".
Straw said the affair was "mindblowing".
"It's a matter of not just profound irritation but profound anger... that this has happened.
"British politics, overall, is, compared with many other countries, pretty clean.
'Raises very serious questions'
"For certain, sure, if Gordon Brown had had one tiny sniff this was going on, he would have stopped it immediately."
Straw did not speculate on whether Abrahams might be a proxy for someone else.
"That's a matter for the inquiry. He says not, but I'm not going to make a judgment about that," he said.
The first step in the police inquiry, which will be carried out by officers from the Met's specialist and economic crime command, will be to review the Electoral Commission's referral report.
On a visit to Washington, Conservative main opposition leader David Cameron told Britain's Channel 4 television he thought Brown "should have referred the matter to the police himself.
"The prime minister said that law-breaking had taken place, and so that's right... If he didn't know what was going on in his party, then it raises very serious questions about his own ability and his own integrity."
The funding row has further dented Labour's opinion poll rating, giving the Conservatives their biggest lead since 1988, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.
- AFP
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