Conservative election expenses case exposes a large grey area
The distinction between local and national spend on an election campaign can be murky, says Sky's Political Editor Faisal Islam.
Friday 12 May 2017 07:46, UK
The Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge around a dozen Conservative candidates accused of incorrect election expenses will come as a huge relief to the Prime Minister.
Theresa May had recently vowed to stand by all of the former MPs who won election in 2015 and had been visited by the intensive marginal "battle bus" campaign.
The files from 14 police forces did contain evidence that Conservatives' local election expenses may have been inaccurate. But the CPS head of special crime, Nick Vamos, said there was insufficient evidence "to prove to the criminal standard that any candidate or agent was dishonest".
All of this refers to the "battle bus" campaign that channelled supporters to the localities the Conservatives needed to win a majority.
The Electoral Commission has already found that the costs were incorrectly stated as national campaigning costs. It was one of the reasons the party was given a record fine of £70,000 in March.
While that means that some of the local returns were understated (and in some cases that would have led to a breach of strict local campaign limits), the CPS had no evidence that this was done knowingly or deliberately by MPs or their agents.
Indeed, the MPs concerned had evidence to the contrary - emails from CCHQ not just saying that the battle buses were part of the national campaign, but that they had to take the visits from the roving bands of Tory canvassers.
:: Conservative election expenses: What you need to know
Some MPs, while police investigations were ongoing, lamented the fact that they never asked for the bus and did not want it - and in some cases, out-of-town campaigners were not very effective.
But Opposition figures decried the notion that despite cases where local spending limits must have been breached, the CCHQ emails in effect cleared the Conservative MPs.
Tim Farron has said a "cloud hangs over" the 2015 election, while the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon suggested the Conservatives were "at it".
Tory chairman Patrick McLoughlin said he was "pleased that the legal authorities have confirmed what we believed was the case all along: that these Conservative candidates did nothing wrong".
He said the complaints were politically motivated and unfounded and "wasted police time".
Karl McCartney, speaking on behalf of 30 Conservative MPs caught up in the police investigations, called for "heads to roll" at the Electoral Commission - and said if this didn't happen, the authority should be abolished.
The Commission said the CPS had confirmed its findings in March, when the Conservatives received the £70,000 fine, but warned that such sums were becoming just "a cost of doing business".
The decisions do also cast a doubt on the enforceability of strict £15,000 limits on local campaigns.
Local and national campaigns are separately regulated, under different laws and by different organisations.
However, there is a large grey area between what is termed local and national spend - affecting battle buses, targeted social media adverts and special personalised letters from senior politicians.
All of the main parties were also censured by the Electoral Commission over incomplete declarations of bus spend, though to a smaller degree.
For now though, the deliberations over 2015 are having an impact. The battle bus is so far conspicuous by its absence in the 2017 Conservative campaign.