UKIP S eastern regional organiser, Ramsey-based Peter Reeve, has come out fighting after being accused of illegally using European money to carry out UKIP s work. Councillor Reeve, a member of Huntingdonshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Co

UKIP'S eastern regional organiser, Ramsey-based Peter Reeve, has come out fighting after being accused of illegally using European money to carry out UKIP's work.

Councillor Reeve, a member of Huntingdonshire District Council and Cambridgeshire County Council, said yesterday (Tuesday) that it was completely untrue.

Cllr Reeve was named by a UKIP Member of the European Parliament as a person who had received money to work for MEPs but carried out "very little" work for them.

Instead it was suggested that the European money paid for the time Cllr Reeve spent working for UKIP - an arrangement forbidden under EU rules.

The accusations were made by MEP, Stuart Agnew, chairman of the party's Norwich and Norfolk branch, who was elected to the EU last year.

He was secretly filmed by an undercover reporter from The Sunday Times who approached Mr Agnew saying her aunt wanted to invest money in UKIP but remain anonymous.

Mr Agnew told the reporter how her aunt could find loopholes in the regulations against anonymous donations and admitted using taxpayers' money to pay half the salary of an assistant - Cllr Reeve - whose amount of actual work for him was "virtually none".

Mr Agnew said: "He is working for the party. And that's strictly illegal."

He added: "He is called my constituency representative, that's what we call him but he doesn't represent me in the constituency."

The video footage adds: "I can tell you that Peter is paid partly by me out of my assistance allowance here, partly by David [Campbell Bannerman, another UKIP MEP].

"He does very little work for us, virtually none."

According to EU regulations, salaries paid out of MEPs' assistance allowance should fund MEPs' constituency work and not party work.

Mr Campbell Bannerman, according to The Sunday Times, denied that Cllr Reeve did no work for him and Mr Agnew and added that Cllr Reeve worked for UKIP "in his spare time".

Cllr Reeve told The Hunts Post Mr Campbell Bannerman was correct.

"I have a number of different roles in my life and I am meticulous about keeping everything separate," he said. "I am a district councillor, a county councillor and I work as a constituency representative for two MEPs. I am very transparent about everything I do."

He added: "This [video] is a clip taken out of context, it has been taken away from what was said before and after it, and Stuart said it came across as a different conversation from the one had. "

A spokesman from the UKIP said: "We are considering taking legal action against The Sunday Times.