Lobbying power of the secretive Brethren
Britain’s charity regulator secured tax breaks worth millions of pounds a year for a hardline Christian sect despite finding that its practices caused harm and broke up families.
The Charity Commission struck a deal with the Exclusive Brethren, which has 17,000 followers in Britain and enjoys charitable tax relief worth up to £13 million (NZ$25m) a year, after the group’s Australian leader called for ‘‘extreme pressure’’ to be put on William Shawcross, the head of the regulator.
British members of the sect, also known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, work for Exclusive Brethren businesses, shun outsiders socially, and make yearly cash payments totalling an estimated £350,000 to Bruce Hales, a secretive accountant who travels by private jet and runs the sect from a wealthy Sydney suburb.
Under its strict disciplinary practices, followers of the sect, which has been described by some as a cult, have been ostracised or thrown out for minor transgressions. Many claim they have been torn away from their families, in some cases for decades.
Leaked documents obtained by The Times lay bare the extraordinary lobbying campaign waged by the Exclusive Brethren to win political support and overturn a decision in June 2012 to refuse charitable status to one of its gospel halls.
Hales ordered elders to ‘‘go for the jugular, go for the underbelly’’ – referring to the Charity Commission – to halt an appeal case that would have allowed former members to testify. ‘‘That’s in hand,’’ a senior elder replied.
Commission officials were followed to unrelated events by Brethren members and pressured by supportive ministers and MPs, and had their offices deluged with more than 3000 letters from adherents. One Brethren member prepared a draft presentation showing a photograph of a car being crushed by a brick wall, accompanied by the words: ‘‘This must be our aim. No mercy. Nothing else will do.’’
More than 200 MPs, many of whom had been persuaded that the Exclusive Brethren were an innocuous Christian church, wrote to the regulator on its behalf, and several tabled supportive motions, organised debates and hosted parliamentary events. Peter Bone, theMP for Wellingborough, who is one of the Exclusive Brethren’s strongest supporters, assured the sect: ‘‘Your wish is my command.’’
Five MPs wrote to Alison McKenna, the principal judge of the charity tribunal, to influence her decision in the Brethren’s favour. A spokesman for McKenna said she had ‘‘made it clear that it was not appropriate to write to a judge during the hearing’’.
By late 2012, the tribunal was set to hear testimony from ex-members, describing how they had suffered emotional and in some cases physical abuse.
However, less than two months after Hales told his enforcers to get ‘‘Shawcross to review the [case] without going to tribunal’’, according to a note of an internal meeting, the Charity Commission agreed to stay the case. Regulators instead negotiated a deal with the Exclusive Brethren behind closed doors.
The Brethren said they had received advice that the regulator’s ‘‘challenge to [the group’s] charitable status was misguided and that a collaborative dialogue might be possible to resolve this’’.
In January last year the sect, which some ex-members and former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd have denounced as an ‘‘extremist cult’’ which ‘‘breaks up families’’ and tightly controls members’ lives, was granted charitable status.
‘‘I think the Charity Commission has questions to answer over whether it buckled under pressure from what appears to have been a particularly aggressive lobbying campaign,’’ Margaret Hodge, chairwoman of the public accounts committee, said.
Several MPs who supported the Exclusive Brethren also received significant help from Brethren volunteers in the run-up to the 2010 British general election and in by-elections. Bone Robert Halfon, and Michael Ellis, who all made speeches, tabled questions or hosted debates on the Brethren’s behalf, received such help.
The Charity Commission says it withdrew the case from the tribunal because of costs – despite spending only £14,000 on the case. By signing a Deed of Variation, which compels the Exclusive Brethren to support members who wish to leave, the sect’s meeting halls fulfilled charitable status, it was decided.
The Brethren described the leaked minutes as unapproved and possibly inaccurate. The Times