A sham charity set up by Liam Fox wined and dined US conservatives in the House of Commons – and dodged its tax bill in the process. “Atlantic Bridge” was set up with the ‘simple aim of “Strengthening the Special Relationship” exemplified by the Reagan-Thatcher partnership of the 1980s’ but was effectively shut down by the Charity Commission in July for breaking regulation on party political activity.
According to documents released last week*, the organisation, whose ”advisory council” includes George Osborne, Michael Gove, William Hague and Chris Grayling, entertained American friends at a dinner for 14 held in Parliament’s reservation-only Club Room last November. Configuring themselves as a charity, the organisation avoided tax obligations imposed on other political bodies. While already under investigation by British regulators, perhaps Fox and his pals fancied one last boozy hurrah before being ordered that their “current activities must cease immediately”.
With a ruling that their so-called “Education and Research Scheme” hadn’t, erm, performed any education or published any research, it is clear that the group cheated British taxpayers of thousands of pounds. Blogger Stephen Newton, whose campaign against Atlantic Bridge brought the body to its knees, explains:
As a higher rate taxpayer, a £1,000 trip to see comedian James Hirsen in LA, for example, would be covered by a £600 donation. The remaining £400 would then be claimed from British taxpayers. It sounds like an invitation to take part in well planned, systematic corruption.
Funnily enough, the group don’t seem keen on paying the cash back.
Doctor Fox and and his friends are on the wrong end of a judicial review to recover the money.
*Those looking to scrutinise which bodies their favourite MPs have been entertaining will be disappointed by a visit to Parliament’s FOI pages, from which published details seem to have mysteriously vanished. However the full response is available to download from Scrapbook here.
UPDATE: There seems to be some confusion on Twitter regarding this story. To clarify, Atlantic Bridge were under investigation by the Charity Commission at the time of the dinner but regulators had not (yet) told them to cease their activities. The point is that they benefited from tax relief for the meal in arrangements which broke charity law.
