Tom Wise charged with money laundering

UKIP have been dealt a severe blow this week following the announcement that the Crown Prosecution Service is charging Tom Wise with money laundering and false accounting.

Wise will appear in court next week. The allegations that Wise had claimed just under £40,000 to pay an assistant, but then funnelled most of the money into his own bank account, came to light in 2005, prompting a lengthy investigation by the Parliament's anti-fraud office OLAF, before the case was passed on to Bedfordshire police.

Wise is, of course, not the first UKIP MEP to face criminal charges. Ashley Mote was convicted on multiple counts of benefit fraud and jailed for nine months in 2007.

Wise has not been convicted of anything and, needless to say, remains innocent until proven guilty. But for a party that often decries EU 'corruption' to have two of its elected MEPs charged with financial irregularities looks like more than carelessness. To have lost no less than one third of the 12 members elected under its banner in 2004 is shambolic.