Having posted on the 31st August regarding Party Political Donations I read that two very wealthy people have each donated £36m to Reform. To even things up I was going to donate £36m to each of Labour, Conservatives Lib-Dems and the Greens (apologies to Count Bin-Man). However on opening my piggy-bank all a found were a couple of very old French Francs and a couple of sweet wrappers - so sorry guys.
On a more serious note, I find this trend deeply disturbing; but to me what is as sinister are proposals to not only ban mega donations ( a good thing) but to make this ban retrospective and date it back to March of this year (a bad thing). I do wonder if such action would be proposed if the donations had been made to the Labour or Conservative Parties?
Whilst I do not support the Reform Party it should be treated fairly and these proposals or at least reported proposals seem unfair to me if they are applied retrospectively- who knows what is true anymore?
It does appear, at least according to AI, that retrospective legislation is allowable in the UK - strongly discouraged with respect to criminal law but has been used with regard to tax law to close loopholes.
Parliament can make legislation retrospective in the UK because the UK has parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament has the legal right to pass laws that apply to past actions, provided the wording of the statute makes that intention completely clear.
Courts assume Parliament does not intend to change past legal rules unless it says so directly.
Common Areas of UseTax Law: The government sometimes passes backdated tax rules to stop aggressive tax avoidance schemes that exploit loopholes.Validating Past Acts:
Parliament can pass laws to officially confirm that past administrative actions or fees were legal, fixing technical errors in older systems.
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