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| Rosena Allin-Khan outside Labour's 2019 party conference |
Labour frontbencher Rosena Allin-Khan has been ordered to pay back £1,142 of taxpayers' money she used to send anti-Brexit propaganda. The staunch Remainer used Parliamentary stationary to send 1,624 letters to constituents ahead of the 2019 general election, informing them that if Labour were elected she would campaign for a Remain vote in Labour's phoney second referendum (on which Leave would not have been an option anyway).
MPs are forbidden from using Parliamentary stationery for political campaigning, yet Allin-Khan not only used official letterheaded paper she used prepaid envelopes to post them. One of the recipients of the letters complained and a Commons investigation has now reported back after almost a year. In addition to breaking the rules on misuse of stationery, the MP was also found to have breached data protection rules. Allin-Khan must pay back the money in full and make a formal apology to the Commons. The Commons Standards Commissioner also noted that 'this is the third time Dr Allin-Khan has been found to have breached the rules in three years'. The commissioner went on to warn Allin-Khan: "Any further breach of the code of conduct by Dr Allin-Khan, where there is evidence of a lack of attention to the rules of the House, might call for a more serious sanction".
Allin-Khan represents the Tooting constituency in London, which at 74.4 per cent returned one of the strongest Remain votes in the referendum.
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| Allin-Khan (circled) at a 'People's Vote' march alongside fellow Remain MPs Ian Blackford and Vince Cable |
