Donors’ £15,000 bill to schmooze with Keir

LABOUR-supporting businesses are being asked to sign up to a new £15,000 party membership package as Sir Keir Starmer ramps up his preparations for the next Election.

In return for the sum, members of the Labour Business Network are being offered a ‘Tier 1’ collection of perks, which includes passes to the annual conference and a table at the party’s annual Business Dinner.

It also gives access to ‘a full-time member of the team whose role it will be to answer any queries you may have and to ensure you maximise your membership of the network’.

The move, which highlights the extent to which Sir Keir and his Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves are determined to woo the business community, comes as a new poll suggests Labour could gain 18 seats in Scotland in the next Election.

The Savanta survey showed Labour on 33 per cent of votes, six points behind the SNP, on 39 per cent. The poll for The Scotsman newspaper – the first taken after Humza Yousaf was elected First Minister and SNP leader – will trouble the bitterly divided Scottish National Party. But it will cheer Labour strategists, who believe they are poised to capitalise more than the Tories over Nicola Sturgeon’s departure from the helm of the SNP.

In an email to potential business backers, Labour says that ‘2023 is expected to be the last full year before the General Election and so we are tailoring our Network membership offer.

‘This will enable us to deliver a much more bespoke package of events, but also to help us manage the immense demand.’

It adds: ‘We have created an exclusive membership structure which will be capped at 50 members. There will be 15 slots available at Tier 1 and 35 available at Tier 2. Each tier will come with a set of benefits which are exclusive to network membership… With only 50 slots available, we expect them to sell very quickly, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.’

Tier 2 membership, at £8,000 per year, includes one commercial pass to the annual conference, two tickets to the Business Dinner and ‘a minimum of eight events which are exclusive to network members – this is in addition to the existing calendar of events throughout the year to which network members will be invited’.

The email adds, for backers who are concerned about publicity: ‘The above packages are commercial transactions and subject to VAT, they are therefore not classified as political donations.’