Unions lead the way as donors desert Labour
DONATIONS to the Labour Party fell sharply as major private donors deserted it in a year of division over how to deal with Brexit and antisemitism.
Money given to Labour from unions fell to a 20-year low in 2018 as the party’s biggest supporters appeared to rein in backing after the 2017 election campaign.
The figures showed that last year trade union donations dropped to £6.2 million – the lowest since reporting began in 2001.
Overall, the Conservatives took in donations totalling more than £21million, compared with less than £7million for Labour and £2.8 million for the Liberal Democrats in 2018.
The Electoral Commission figures lay bare how Labour has seen a stark fall in donations received from private individuals, compared with in the years immediately after general elections in 2016 and 2011.
The party received just £260,000 from individual private donors in 2018. This compares with £3.4 million in 2016 – although at least £2.4 million from Lord Sainsbury was related to Labour’s campaigning in the European Union referendum. In 2011, individual donors gave the party £611,000 – more than twice the figure in 2018.
A breakdown of the latest figures shows that two men – William Haughey and Lord Crawford – gave more than £30,000 last year.
In 2016, 13 individuals donated more than £30,000, including Martin Taylor (£435,000), Max Mosley (£200,000) and Walter Ross (£60,000), according to the Electoral Commission.
Sir David Garrard, who lent the party £2.3 million over 10 years ago, told The Daily Telegraph: “I ceased to give to the Labour party any donations from the time Jeremy Corbyn became leader.
“From the very outset I knew of Mr Corbyn’s background and I was fearful of his leadership and what it would do to undermine our democracy.”
James Cleverly, the Conservative Party deputy chairman, said: “Even Labour’s traditional big union donors appear to be turning their back on [Corbyn’s] Labour.
“His abject failure to deal with anti-jewish racism within Labour and his repeated tendency to side with our country’s enemies is leaving a once proud... party a shadow of its former self.” The biggest gift to the Tories in the final three months of last year was £1.5 million from John Gore, the musical theatre producer who is a regular Tory donor.
The Conservatives also received £146,750 in donations from Lubov Chernukhin, a regular backer and the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, who is a former finance minister to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
JCB, the construction vehicle maker, gave £666,667, and IPGL, the investment firm run by Michael Spencer, a former Tory party treasurer, gave £506,188.
“We’re proud to be funded through small donations from our half million members,” a Labour spokesman said. “It is no surprise that the Tories continue to be funded by the wealthiest few [and] have created an economic system which directly benefits those at the top, at the expense of ordinary people.”