The Conservatives have opposed calls for the UK’s election regulator to be given more power amid growing concerns about the influence of “dark money” in politics.



In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, a senior Tory official said the party does not support strengthening the Electoral Commission so that it can impose bigger fines and prosecute criminal cases and went on to heavily criticise its performance.

Alan Mabbutt, the Tories’ director general, told the Commons’ Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC), that the Electoral Commission had handed out unfairly large fines for minor campaign violations, taken the wrong tone in communications with parties, and given “deficient” advice on electoral law.

In his attack on the commission, Mabbutt also disparaged a prominent parliamentary report overseen by one of his party’s own MPs.

Mabbutt said that recommendations for enhancing electoral regulation by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, chaired by the Tory MP Damian Collins, in its disinformation and fake news inquiry were “impractical” and had not been run past the party headquarters. Collins did not respond to a request for comment.

The party’s broadside against the Electoral Commission comes as the political regulator faces increasing scrutiny because of a string of campaign controversies since the 2016 Brexit vote.

In one high-profile case, the commission found that the official Vote Leave campaign broke electoral laws by exceeding spending limits. In another major case, the watchdog referred the businessperson Arron Banks to the National Crime Agency after an investigation raised doubts about whether he was the true source of millions of pounds in donations to the Leave.EU campaign. More recently, the commission investigated Nigel Farage’s Brexit party’s fundraising in the run-up to last month’s European elections.

In dealing with these controversies, the regulator has been criticised by campaigners on both sides of the political divide. Brexiteers have accused it of pursuing pro-Leave groups because of a pro-EU bias. When it visited the Brexit party’s headquarters to ask questions about its fundraising structures, Farage claimed the commission was “absolutely full of Remainers”.

