Less than 10% of the public believe foreign donations to political parties should be allowed
Just 8% of Brits believe foreign nationals who can’t vote in UK elections should be allowed to donate to political parties, while 70% think this practice should not be permitted.
This is according to the findings of a new YouGov poll that surveyed over 4,500 adults.
A report in The Guardian yesterday revealed that Labour allegedly dropped a plan to ban foreign political donations in December 2023, following an intervention from Waheed Alli, the Labour peer who has donated around £60,000 in gifts to Keir Starmer since 2019.
According to a new book about Labour’s route back to power, Get In, by journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, Lord Alli, Labour’s fundraising chief in opposition, intervened to stop a planned speech by Angela Rayner and Gordon Brown.
The speech was set to announce the changes to political donation rules.
A Labour source told Pogrund and Maguire that Alli pulled the announcement with a week to go, with no explanation.
The plan would have blocked billionaire Elon Musk from making any potential donations to Reform UK.
It would have made it illegal to donate unless donors were registered to vote in the UK or via companies owned by people based in Britain.
Labour is reportedly considering proposals to cap the amount individuals and companies can donate to political parties as part of an effort to tighten the rules on money in UK politics.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has called on individual and corporate donations to political parties to be capped at £100,000 a year.
Harry Quilter-Pinner, IPPR interim executive director, said: “Political donations have doubled in the UK in real terms since 2000, and even more concerning is the recent huge increase in ‘mega-donors’ giving more than £1m to one party in a year.
“This undermines trust in democracy and makes people feel their vote doesn’t count. No one person should be able to give more than £100,000 a year to a political party, to lower the risk that the concentration of highly wealthy individuals or big business skewed our political system.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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