Tory MP dodges question about Leave campaign accepting £600,000 donation from former BNP member

The Vote Leave representative swiftly moved onto another subject

Jon Stone
Tuesday 21 June 2016 21:57 BST
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Andrea Leadsom defends ex-BNP member donation

A Vote Leave representative has dodged a question about whether the campaign will pay back a £600,000 donation from a former BNP member.

The BuzzFeed News website first reported on Tuesday afternoon that Gladys Bramall, of Sutton Coldfield in Birmingham, had been a member of the BNP.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady, who backs Remain, raised the question live during an EU referendum debate at the Wembley Arena.

“Today we learned that Vote Leave took a £600,000 donation from a former member of the BNP. Are you going to pay it back?” she asked.

Andrea Leadsom, a Conservative MP who was present in the debate for the Leave campaign, did not directly answer the question, however.

“That is unworthy of this debate,” she said, before continuing: “There are millions of people who have very real and genuine concerns about the impact of free movement in this country and who have donated to a campaign, to Vote Leave, to take back control.”

“The problem with free movement, for me as a mum….”

Ms Bramall, the third biggest individual donor to Vote Leave, had her name on the BNP’s membership register, which was leaked in 2006 when Nick Griffin was leader.

She told the website: “My husband joined, he obviously enrolled me at the same time. It wasn’t with my knowledge.”

After the debate Michael Gove was asked about the donation.

He said Vote Leave were currently “investigating how this money arrived in the accounts”.

Mr Gove added that the donation was from a woman who was signed up to the party by her husband, who has since died, and was "horrified" when she found out.

"So you're keeping the money," he was asked. "We're still investigating," he replied.

Vote Leave has also declined to comment on the revelation.

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