EXCLUSIVE: What the Yes to AV campaign doesn’t want you to know

For this week’s magazine (subscribers click here or follow this link to subscribe from £1/week), I have been on the trail of the ‘Yes To Fairer Votes’ (YTFV) campaign, attempting to discover the real source of their funding. What I found reveals a catalogue of undeclared donations, hidden money trails and one massive conflict of interest of such comical proportions that even Berlusconi would blush. It shows, in effect, that the largest single donor to the ‘Yes’ campaign is Britain’s no1 vendor of ballot papers and vote counting services – a massively profitable outfit whose commercial interest in a new, complicated Westminster voting system is clear.

Last week, the Electoral Reform Society – the organisation really in charge of the referendum campaign – admitted to making a donation of £1.05 million to it, but not only do internal Society documents show that they have really donated much more, they’ve also been less than open about the real source of their funding.