Invisible Business: The Unregulated World of Political Party Commerce

Abstract

This article explores an area of British political party funding that is overlooked, under-researched and under-regulated: party commerce. A comparison of the trading activities of five large and five small political party headquarters units is presented using audited political party accounts made public by the Electoral Commission in 2003, the first year in which such data became available. The anomalies in party funding transparency arising from the lack of regulation of political party commerce are discussed. The dangers of allowing party commerce to continue unregulated, or of inappropriate regulation, are debated.