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Tories and DUP accused of conspiring to hide mystery Brexit donor

Owen Smith said the July 1 date favoured by the British government was 'arbitrary'. Picture by Hugh Russell
Owen Smith said the July 1 date favoured by the British government was 'arbitrary'. Picture by Hugh Russell Owen Smith said the July 1 date favoured by the British government was 'arbitrary'. Picture by Hugh Russell

The Tory government has been accused of seeking to "obscure the source" of a 'dark money' donation to the DUP by refusing to support the back-dating of political donations to Northern Ireland parties.

The claim by shadow secretary of state Owen Smith came as Northern Ireland Office minister Chloe Smith yesterday outlined legislation on donation transparency at Westminster.

The new rules would see the Electoral Commission publish details of donations to Stormont parties over £7,500.

The British government wants the rules to date from July 1 this year but opposition parties believe they should back-dated to 2014, in accordance with previously agreed legislation.

Ahead of the 2016 EU referendum, the DUP received £435,000 from the shadowy Constitutional Research Council (CRC), the majority of which was spent buying advertising space for the Leave campaign in the Metro newspaper, which is not circulated in Northern Ireland.

The donation was cited on several occasions during a committee hearing at Westminster yesterday where the new transparency rules were debated.

During the debate, Mr Smith and his Labour colleague Ben Bradshaw claimed that the Electoral Commission imposed a £6,000 fine on CRC earlier this year, however, secrecy laws mean the watchdog is unable to say who was sanctioned.

The commission stated only that it imposed the penalty due to “failures by a regulated entity” but could not “disclose further information”.

The committee hearing saw heated exchanges between Labour's Northern Ireland spokesman and DUP MP Sammy Wilson, who as well as supporting the Tories on the legislation believes the new rules should be extended to include donations from outside the UK.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Smith told The Irish News that the July 1 date enabled a "cover up" of the source of the largest ever donation to a political party in Northern Ireland.

"The DUP will not make public who asked them to spend this money in Great Britain and not in Northern Ireland, nor if they were aware of the original source of this money and why the Constitutional Research Council were fined by the Electoral Commission," he said.

"The Tories are conspiring with the DUP to obscure the source of this shadowy donation."

Mr Wilson said the DUP supported moves towards greater transparency.

But he said the rule changes did not go far enough because they did not enable scrutiny of "foreign donations".

"Sinn Féin have raised millions of dollars in the United States and because of a refusal to close this loophole, that will be allowed to continue," he said.