Today, the Charity Commission published a new piece of guidance which warns that charities must consider whether political campaigning about the EU would support the charity’s purposes, whether conflicts of interest and other risks were properly managed and whether decisions and the reasons for them were properly recorded. It also states that charities campaigning in this referendum should be the exception, not the rule. Responding to this, Director of Public Policy Asheem Singh said;
“It is remarkable that the Charity Commission has aligned itself with those quoted in the Telegraph to insist that charities are the only sector that should be excluded from the debate around the biggest constitutional question of this generation.
“It is one thing to be conservative when it comes to charity campaigning, it is quite another for a regulator to insist that charities censor themselves at every opportunity. At this moment in time, the commission is moving beyond error and into the realm of parody.”