Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth fined for breaking campaigning rules
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
Greenpeace Ltd and Friends of the Earth Limited have been fined by the Electoral Commission for failing to comply with campaigning rules at the 2015 UK Parliamentary General Election.
At the general election, non-party campaigners were required to register with the Electoral Commission if they spent more than either £20,000 campaigning in England or £10,000 campaigning in Wales. Neither organisation registered, although the Commission’s investigations identified over £100,000 in spending on campaigning activity conducted during the regulated period.
Separately, the Electoral Commission has also fined the Democratic Unionist Party £1000 for failing to notify the Commission of a change of registered Leader of the party by the required date.
Greenpeace Ltd and Friends of the Earth Limited investigation
Greenpeace Ltd has been fined a total of £30,000. The Commission concluded that Greenpeace Ltd incurred at least £99,000 of spending in England and £12,000 of spending in Wales on a “Coastal Champions” boat tour and on an anti-fracking poster campaign which was undertaken jointly with Friends of the Earth Ltd. The spending on these campaign activities was incurred during the regulated period for the 2015 UK Parliamentary general election.
The Commission also found that Friends of the Earth Ltd incurred at least £24,000 on spending in England. The spending was incurred on the joint activity with Greenpeace Ltd and separately on a “manifesto scorecard” published on its website. Friends of the Earth Ltd was fined £1000 and has paid the fine.
The Commission concluded that overall, these activities promoted the candidates or parties who demonstrated their support for particular campaign messages and were therefore regulated activities under the legislation.
Bob Posner, Director of Party Finance and Regulation & Legal Counsel for the Electoral Commission said:
“Non-party campaigners are vital to a healthy democracy and we encourage their active participation during campaign periods; however, where a significant amount of money is being spent on campaigning it is right that voters can see who is spending that money and what they are campaigning for. The Commission supports all campaigners by producing a range of materials to help ensure compliance with the law.”
Greenpeace seem to believe that rules don’t apply to them.
Comments are closed.
So the fines amount to a SMALL election campaigning TAX on the evil multinational pseudo Eco-charities.
FoE paid 4%
And Greenpeace the economy saboteurs pay 24%
Greenpeace, FoE, and enviro-activists in general NEVER believe that rules apply to them! I could bore you all to death with chapter and verse on the battles I and others fought with local greenies over a decade and more.
Once they have an idea in their heads they will twist and wriggle and lie (while accusing everyone else of doing the same) in order to get their own way. Their regard for civilised discourse (like their regard for civilisation itself) is non-existent. Their respect for the law is “discretionary” and their mendacity and hypocrisy unbounded.
As for their bad points …
Greenp = Eco-Scientology
Obviously, I meant
Greenpeace = Eco-Scientology
A bit like the law on making truthful statements when trying to undermine legitimate businesses. They laughably claimed they weren’t being serious. Was it India that stripped Greenpiss of its charitable status for undermining the state?
Greenpeace India’s all seven bank accounts have been frozen with immediate effect:
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/mha-suspends-greenpeace-indias-registration/article7084953.ece
Resolute Files Racketeering Suit Against Greenpeace in U.S. Federal Court:
http://www.resolutevgreenpeace.com
“Greenpeace, after repeated attacks against Canada’s biggest forest products company for “destroying,” Canada’s boreal forests, now says that it was merely stating an opinion about the logging activity, not a fact.”
http://business.financialpost.com/news/greenpeace-admits-its-attacks-on-forest-products-giant-were-non-verifiable-statements-of-subjective-opinion
Environmentalists are amongst the biggest liars in politics, and there’s some heavy competition for that accolade.
Biggest liars in politics? You must split a lot of hairs to determine the biggest liar in politics. Someone raises the bar every day.
Yeah I agree it’s a tough title to win!
We’ll soon find out if they’ve learned anything from their mistakes.
Since they are unlikely ever to admit to making mistakes … … …
It looks more like they are serial offenders. This current judgment is for bad behavior in 2015. But their false advertising and flouting of donation rules has been rampant over the years.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/truth-in-climate-advertising/
Bring back the multiperson gallows.
They’d approve; it’s the Tyburn Tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn
Meanwhile, FotE are busily preparing to edit & re-issue a statement made in January this year:
“Donna Hume, a Friends of the Earth senior campaigner, said: “No ruling has been made against us. The
ASAElectoral Commission offered to drop the case without ruling after we confirmed that a particular leaflet was no longer being used.” 😀https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/04/friends-of-earth-ticked-off-claims-anti-fracking-leaflet
It’s great to see what our donations are spent! Moral of this story is don’t give a penny to these lying, corrupt “charities”.
AAA+++
We would also need to starve them of all the cash they receive from government.
Greenpeace, FoE and WWF all consider themselves above the law. They are corrupt and evil.
This news item will surprise regular viewers of C4 who , since the 20015 election, have been trying to get that election ruled null and void on the grounds that someone’ s “battlebus” was not properly registered as an expense.( Well actually C4 is very unlikely to mention this ironic twist to their campaign).
They will however be able to extract some comfort in knowing that Therese May has done what they tried so hard to do for 2 years and destroy the Tory majority and replace it in 49 days time with a Lib/lab/Green coalition, fulfilling all their dreams (and all the nightmares of a few of us )
We shall see but I suspect May will get back in but will have only delayed the slaughter of the Tories for 5 years when the Brexit chickens come home to roost. Peter Hitchens has long argued that the Tories need destroying to enable a conservative party to re-emerge.
I can’t believe you guys here don’t understand that it’s GreenPeae who are the poor innocent victims in all of this :
Tony Juniper and The Guardian do
“Because of gagging rules on campaign groups saying what you think can now result in a fine ”