Andy Burnham denies taking cash for access after tabloid sting
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Version 0 of 1. The Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham has denied taking cash for access from a foreign donor after the Sun reported that an undercover journalist gave £5,000 to a businessman who later arranged for the donor to meet him. As part of the operation mounted by the Sun, Burnham is secretly recorded apparently saying he thinks Jeremy Corbyn would be a “disaster” for the Labour party if elected leader. In public, Burnham has been warmer about his rival, and is expected to take a job in Corbyn’s frontbench team if he wins. . Burnham said he had been the victim of a sting operation and would refer the newspaper to the press regulator, Ipso. The Sun reported that Burnham was caught on tape saying of Corbyn’s expected victory: “Privately, it is a disaster for the Labour party. I mean, publicly, he is a nice man, a nice individual. He believes in the things he campaigns on so he’s not a fraud in any way. But I think the public will think Labour has given up on ever being a government again.” it also reported him saying that Yvette Cooper had run a strange campaign, and that all of his private polling had her running third. Burnham has had a long feud with the Sun, which is hostile over his refusal to forgive the newspaper for its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. He has refused to speak to the paper during his campaign. In its story, the Sun claimed that the businessman, Faiz ul Rasool, told its reporter, posing as a wealthy foreign donor, that Burnham needed money to fund his bid to succeed Ed Miliband as Labour leader and offered a face-to-face meeting in return for a cash gift. According to the Sun, two days later, on Monday this week, Rasool invited its reporter to a reception near Labour’s London HQ, where he was introduced to Burnham. Rasool’s British wife handed over a cheque for a further £3,000 to one of Burnham’s campaign aides. On Friday, a spokesman for Burnham said that, while Rasool had previously donated money to his campaign, he had no role in his team. A source in the Burnham camp said the leadership campaign had no knowledge of £5,000 reportedly handed over in cash in a casino in Mayfair, central London. Checks on the £3,000 donation established that it was impermissible, as it came from a foreign national, so the cheque was not cashed, said the spokesman. “Faiz ul Rasool has had no role, formal or informal, within the Burnham campaign,” said the spokesman. “He made a donation in July of £5,000, which was declared in accordance with standard compliance rules.” The Burnham team said Arshad was not invited to the reception, held at campaign HQ on Monday evening, and the event organisers were not notified that another guest was planning to bring him along. He asked for a photograph next to Burnham, with people he claimed were his wife and baby. “During the event, [the donor] Arshad – who was not introduced under that name – presented an unsolicited cheque to a campaign staffer in the names of Mr A Ali and Miss N K Khan. Our routine due diligence threw up a number of discrepancies and as a result, the cheque was never cashed.” Burnham tweeted on Friday: “Fully expected to have to contend with a lot of things in this contest but a tabloid sting involving a 9-month-old baby was not one of them.” Fully expected to have to contend with a lot of things in this contest but a tabloid sting involving a 9-month-old baby was not one of them. Rasool has made significant donations to Labour in the past, and is chair of Muslim Friends of Labour and Labour Friends of Pakistan. He said he was “shocked” by the reports and said the £5,000 had been returned. Rasool added: “I have been involved independently organising and mobilising the Muslim community to help and support the Labour party for many years. I have a track record of supporting the party in an open, transparent and legitimate way. “I confirm that I was given £5,000 by Mr ‘Arshad’ as a deposit for sponsorship for a planned Muslim Friends of Labour reception. The deposit was not for Andy Burnham. After carrying out due diligence on Mr ‘Arshad’, I concluded that he was unable to satisfy the criteria. “Specifically, his claimed identity could not be verified. He said at 5.27pm on Wednesday September 9, before any story was published on Thursday night , he informed Mr ‘Arshad’ via a text message that he did not satisfy due diligence checks and that his deposit would be returned.” |