Ukip is NOT a political party, argues HMRC!

When is a political party not a political party? when it is Ukip, it seems. despite the fact it is defending 163 council seats in the local elections in May, hM revenue and Customs is trying to prove Ukip is not a proper registered party.

Arron Banks, who gave Ukip £1million ahead of the 2015 General election, spent two days in court last week challenging hMrC which wants him to pay £300,000 tax on that donation.

The current Treasury definition of a political party is one that has secured at least 150,000 votes and has one or two MPs elected to the Commons in a General election.

while Ukip has indeed had three MPs — Bob Spink, douglas Carswell and Mark reckless — all have been defectors from the Tory Party, so Ukip has never been able to boast an MP who was elected at a General election.

hMrC sent a team of five barristers to do battle with Banks, who has come out fighting, arguing Ukip won the european elections in 2014 with 27.5 per cent of the vote, producing 23 MePs.

‘I think it will come as a shock not just to nigel Farage, who led Ukip, but to the millions of people who voted for Ukip that they were not voting for a political party,’ he told me.

Ironically, Banks expects to win his case not in London but at the european Court of human rights — which, of course, is loathed by Brexiteers.