North isles election candidate refuses to submit expenses return

A controversial General Election candidate who stood in Orkney and Shetland last month has announced that he has refused to submit a return of his expenses, as is required by UK Law.

Shetlander Stuart Hill,  stood to be the North Isles candidate in UK parliament on June 8. He has said he is refusing to submit a return of his expenses, claiming the election was “illegal”.

Under UK legislation all election agents have to give details of a candidate’s spending return to the Returning Officer, within 35 days of the declaration of the results of the election. This deadline was reached last Friday.

However, Mr Hill said: “before the UK general election, I notified the Prime Minister, the Electoral Commission, the Returning Officer, deputy returning officer and all the other candidates that the election was illegal because no Scottish court has heard any evidence that Shetland and Orkney are part of Scotland.

He added: “Unless they can be proved to be part of Scotland, there can be no legal UK elections here.”

He also claims to that the only person to reply was the deputy returning officer in Shetland, who he said raised “inconsequential points”, but was unable to rebut anything in his notice.

He said he was reminded of the deadline for the return of donations and expenses by Orkney Islands Council, but replied to the local authority claiming the election was illegal and a fraud on the people of Orkney and Shetland and he had no intention of compounding this would not be submitting any return.

He added: “If this is an offence, it pales into insignificance beside that of holding of an illegal election.

“Not only was the election illegal, the result was null and void and Alistair Carmichael has absolutely no authority to act as a member of parliament”

Mr Hill is a long-time campaigner for independence for Orkney and Shetland, so strong are his convictions that he has repeatedly come up against the law in the past.