Anna Isaac

But yes, there is, as I understand it, no limit to what an individual may give to a political party beyond the overall spending cap that is in place for parties in any given year.

Yes, it's certainly well ahead of the pack in terms of party political fundraising.

And I think what's really important as a sort of interesting side effect, perhaps, of this story is that, you know, Christoph Harborne's decision to go on the record and give this interview to The Telegraph, prompted by our story, is that he said he's really clear that he will find a way to continue to give more.

And he also doesn't want any limits placed on people giving money when they're overseas.

So, as we know, the Prime Minister has talked about trying to limit the amount of donations that comes for people who aren't living in the UK.

And Christopher Harbourner said...

he feels that he was the target of Sakhir's proposed legislation banning foreign-based citizens from donating to political parties and that he intends to, he says, to directly quote him, he says, where there's a will, there's a way.

So he's certainly very clear that he

He views it as a moral duty to support reform and to back them as much as possible.

And to, you know, to find a way, even if, you know, it's not clear what ways he's quite identifying, but he's going to find a way to make sure that he can continue to give very significant support financially to the party going forward.

Yeah, so I think it's...

I think it's really important to know that these rules are ultimately aimed at, as I understand it, the spirit of them, the intention of them is that they're meant to offer people a clear impression of any outside influence that might be brought to bear on a member of parliament.

That's the spirit of the register.

And there are rules that state any benefit received by an MP in the 12 months before they become an MP.

So it's quite an important thing to understand that it's not sort of you don't sort of start day one as an MP and then going forward.

That's the only information that matters.

It doesn't work quite like that.

The 12 month period before you become an MP matters, too.

And the idea is that you should declare any benefit.

Now these benefits are all categorised.