A charity fronted by the former MP George Galloway may not have conducted any charitable activity or distributed any humanitarian aid despite claiming to have gathered £1m in public donations, according to an investigation from the charity regulator.

Viva Palestina was established in early 2009 and launched a large-scale media fundraising campaign to finance aid convoys to Gaza from the UK, bringing food, medicine, medical equipment and essential goods and services.

In February 2009 its website claimed the initiative had raised over £1m and included a statement from Galloway – then MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in London – which said: “I have launched a major initiative in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

On the website, Galloway – who was sacked this week by TalkRadio after sending an allegedly antisemitic tweet – was also listed as a “subscriber” and had signed the charity’s constitution, which said it was formed “for the alleviation of suffering and to help the people of Gaza to rebuild their land”.

But investigators from the Charity Commission found that the charity’s trustees (who did not include Galloway) failed in the basic requirement to keep receipts and records of income and expenditure and never submitted any accounts.

It concluded: “In terms of activities, it was difficult for the inquiry to establish with any certainty whether any charitable activity had taken place, as it found little if any evidence that humanitarian aid was distributed to those in need in accordance with the charity’s objects.”

An earlier investigation by the commission found that in the first three months of its existence Viva Palestina actually raised only £180,000 in donations, not £1m.

In 2009 Galloway went on two Viva Palestina convoys and in 2012, after being elected the MP for Bradford West, he also spoke at a fundraiser for the organisation.

The commission first took an interest in Viva Palestina in 2009, when it forced the trustees to register as a charity and imposed an action plan.

The regulator began a second inquiry in 2013 after trustees ignored the plan and failed in their statutory duty to submit annual returns and accounts for the financial years in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

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On Thursday it finally concluded its investigation and found that the trustees had:

Failed in their statutory duty to provide any financial accounts, in breach of the charity’s own governing document and charity law.

Failed to address the outstanding regulatory concerns by completing the steps required in the action plan.

Failed to co-operate with the commission during its investigation, including failing to provide information.

Failed in their duty to provide and maintain proper financial controls and to properly manage and administer their charity.

Failed to discharge their duties to safeguard the charity’s money and assets and to act prudently, which included avoiding activities that may have placed their funds, assets or reputation at undue risk, namely: they failed in the basic requirement to keep receipts and records of income and expenditure and so be able to properly account for charitable funds raised and spent. These basic requirements are all the more important when charitable funds are raised from members of the public and used for humanitarian needs in conflict zones; there were no basic financial controls or policies in place to account for and safeguard funds coming into the charity and being spent.



The commission concluded: “In summary, the charity was not properly governed, managed or administered by its trustees – as a result of those failings its reputation, that of the wider charitable sector, and charitable funds donated by the public to the charity were put at risk.”

Ron McKay, Galloway’s sometime spokesman, who went on the convoys, insisted Viva Palestina was a campaign and not a charity.

“It’s taken the Charity Commission getting on for a decade to come up with this nonsense. A quick viewing of YouTube would have shot this down. Viva Palestina took hundreds of vans, cars, lorries, ambulances, you name it, to Gaza and they were not empty I can vouchsafe. If the participants’ pockets were also stuffed with money which they gave to Gazans, I don’t know. But I hope they did,” he said.

“Finally, to reiterate, VP was set up as a campaign, it was the Charity Commission, in an undisguised attempt to shut down the politics, which decided it was a charity. For this kangaroo judgment they haven’t even attempted to contact me or any of the others involved, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. I don’t even accept the premise of it, far less the conclusion. I’m proud of what we did.”







