Labour Party loses donation that breached electoral law

LABOUR has been forced to hand over a £6,000 donation from a director of Everton Football Club as it broke electoral law.

Labour’s regional team in the North West accepted the gift in October from Alexander Ryazantsev, a British businessman whose father played for several teams in the former Soviet Union.

However, last month the Electoral Commission found Mr Ryazantsev’s donation was impermissible. The party forfeited the donation to the commission, which passed it to the Treasury for general government spending.

Mr Ryazantsev made the donation to Labour “in good faith” and said he was on the electoral register and had voted in several elections in the UK.

A commission source said the party had “informed us during our investigation that at the time the donation was made Mr Ryazantsev wasn’t on an electoral register. It is possible for someone to have voted in the past and later not be on an electoral register. Being a British citizen alone doesn’t permit someone [to] donate to political parties.”

His friends said Mr Ryazantsev was “dumbfounded” by the ruling, which he only discovered when contacted by The Sunday Telegraph last week.

Tories, regularly attacked by Labour for accepting money from Russian donors, leapt on the news. Peter Gibson MP said: “This is blind hypocrisy from Labour, who take every opportunity to attack the Conservative Party receiving legal and correctly declared donations from people of Russian origin.”

A Labour spokesman said: “We have worked with the Electoral Commission. We have resolved it in a way that is satisfactory to them.”