Any "self employed" person with only one client/customer would find it very hard to justify such a status long term to the Inland Revenue. If individuals are paid for a specific activity for a specified period, eg Press Officer for Henley By-election or Campaign Manager 2009 European Parliament Elections, then this would be acceptable. If someone is a Press Officer on a long term contract then they would need other clients as well as UKIP in order to retain self employed status. The test would be if it was reasonable for the "employer" to withold tax and National Insurance or if it would be reasonable to pay that person gross and they make their own arrangements with the taxman. Working full time for a single client on an open ended timescale makes you an employee. Working for a mix of clients who time share you makes you self employed as it would be unreasonable to expect one of your clients to withold tax and NI but not the others. I work as a self employed contractor and include the phrase below on all my invoices.
"I am registered self employed with HM Inland Revenue Service under Tax Reference ABC/0000000 and National Insurance No: WK 00 00 00 X"
IR35 did make it difficult to work long term for a single client as a contractor. The way round it was to register a limited company and the client then contracted with that company to supply services and paid gross the same as to any other supplier. The company only usually had one employee of course!
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