PARLIAMENTARY hopeful Robert Halfon has rejected calls to return cash received from controversial Conservative Party donor Lord Ashcroft.
Back in 2005 Mr Halfon accepted £5,000 from the Tory peer who this week revealed his status as a tax non-domicile.
As a "non-dom", he only pays tax on his earnings made in the UK and not on his larger income from his lucrative overseas business interests.
Lord Ashcroft, who is also vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, has donated more than £4m directly to election campaigns in key marginal constituencies - including Harlow.
The Labour Party nationally accused Lord Ashcroft of reneging on his promise to move to the UK so he could be made a peer, while Harlow MP Bill Rammell called on Mr Halfon to return what he called the "tainted Ashcroft funding".
"For the Tory vice-chairman and major donor and the Conservative Party to have been, as the Information Commissioner described ‘evasive and obfuscatory’, is simply wrong," said Mr Rammell.
"Instead of paying tax in the UK on all of his earned income, he has been channelling millions into local Tory parties in marginal seats such as Harlow to help them try to buy the election.
"I urge Harlow Tories to justify themselves to the town’s British taxpayers misled by Ashcroft and return donations immediately."
But Mr Halfon said he would not be lectured to by Mr Rammell, who he described as "up to his neck in the expenses scandal".
"Given the Labour Party has accepted £10.5m from non-doms and made Lord Paul a peer, the stench of Labour hypocrisy is pretty incredible," he said.
Mr Halfon said he would have preferred it if Lord Ashcroft was a full UK resident but asked if Mr Rammell would also want Lord Ashcroft’s donations returned from Anglia Ruskin University, which is setting up a campus in Harlow.
As a non-dom, Lord Ashcroft is currently allowed to donate money to UK political parties as long as he is registered to vote here.
But the peer has remained secretive about his status until this week when the publication of a Freedom of Information request by a Labour MP threatened to reveal his status.
