Secret foreign cash funded Tory campaign

[ozymandius]

The Conservative party admitted last night that it fought the last general election partly with the use of foreign loans which have now been hurriedly repaid to clean up the party's accounts.

The Tories have been forced to repay £5m over the past fortnight to at least 10 supporters in order to preserve their anonymity after the individuals who lent the money insisted they did not want their names to made public. Some of that money will have returned abroad.

-cut-

The Labour party chairman, Ian McCartney, called on the Tories to reveal the sources of overseas loans. "This Labour government outlawed foreign donations to prevent those from outside this country interfering with our democracy," he said. "But the Tories have now revealed they deliberately tried to get round this ban by taking foreign loans.

"We now need to know who these people are; where they reside; where they pay tax; how much they lent; and on what terms. By failing to provide these details, the Conservatives and David Cameron are fuelling suspicions that they have even more to hide."

more...

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,1744569,00.html

[leveymg]

1. GOP does same thing. But Abramoff & Norquist don't pay it back

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/3/10145/56290
Abramoff Plea May Mask Bigger Crime: GOP Foreign Influence Peddling
by leveymg
Tue Jan 03, 2006 at 08:14:05 AM PDT
A plea agreement has been reached between the Bush Justice Department and attorneys representing GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff.

This reportedly promises to implicate some 20 Congressmen in a elaborate scheme to funnel slush fund money syphoned from Indian tribes and fraud in the purchase of a cruise line to favored lawmakers. However, there is another side to the Abramoff influence-peddling operation that the Indian tribes lobbying fraud and SunCruz probes do not touch, and which major papers, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, have virtually ignored.

That is the money that Abramoff and fellow GOP fixer, Grover Norquist,have syphoned from Islamic banks and groups known to have financial ties to terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda.

MORE BELOW . . .

leveymg's diary :: ::
This is the bigger crime of illegal foreign influence over the Bush Administration and GOP lawmakers that FBI whistleblower Sybil Edmonds has tried to expose despite a federal gag order based in the rarely invoked State Secrets exemption. http://www.democracynow.org/.... ; http://www.csmonitor.com/...

Unless Democrats and other concerned Americans raise their voices and call for a full inquiry into illegal foreign influence over the US political process and elections, the details of this story just are not going to be made public. We should oppose any plea agreement in the Abramoff case that does not put foreign money into the spotlight.

SNIP

[Greeby]

2. Ex-squeeze me?

"This Labour government outlawed foreign donations to prevent those from outside this country interfering with our democracy,..."

Thank goodness. If Labour was financed by foreigners, they might conspire with those foreigners to launch a war against the will of the people. :sarcasm: