Partied out: As party membership plummets the oligarchs ascend

Bassim Haidar, a Lebanese-Irish national and IT billionaire, donated more than £70,000 to the Tories before the last general election. Unhappy with changes to government policy on non-doms, Haidar is a string of Tory backers now flirting with Reform. 

British businessman Mohamed Amersi donated almost £500,000 to the Tories between 2019 and 2021. But he’s also shifting allegiance, after losing a high-profile legal battle in 2023 with the former Conservative MP Charlotte Leslie. She had accused him of attempting to take over the Conservative Middle East Council, leading to a defamation lawsuit that Amersi lost.

Tory MP David Davis subsequently launched a far-ranging attack on Amersi, saying he was a “shady fixer for corrupt politicians” who had made his fortune by “facilitating corrupt deals for dictatorships and autocracies” including Russia.

The Oswald’s soiree was organised by Farage and Nick Candy, the billionaire property developer and former Tory donor, who is now Reform’s treasurer responsible for the party’s fundraising efforts ahead of the next general election.

Attendees were told that 190,000 people had signed up to become members of Reform.

190,000? Not bad at a time when political party membership in Britain continues to plummet. Long gone are the days where joining a political party was a common life milestone: now just 1% of the electorate are party members, compared to 3.8% in 1983. It seems, as coffers from party subs shrink, billionaires are filling the gap. Collectivism is out and individualism is in.

To curb the exodus of high-value donors to Reform, wealthy backers were courted at last weekend’s Conservative conference in Westminster. One insider admitted it had been one of the party’s worst stretches for fundraising, with CCHQ’s treasurer department alarmed by the number of donors halting or pulling support. There is concern that once donors defect to Reform, they’ll be nearly impossible to win back.

Brexit andArron Banks

But this reliance on the super-rich isn’t new. Nigel Farage has long nuzzled up to billionaires to advance political ambitions. Images of him grinning like a Cheshire cat next to Arron Banks during the EU referendum spring to mind.

Insurance tycoon Banks was the biggest backer of the Brexit campaign, donating more than £8m. In spring 2016, the one-time UKIP donor gave £6m in loans to Leave.EU. 

In fact, five of the UK’s wealthiest businessmen, including Banks, Crystal Palace co-owner Jeremy Hosking, investment billionaire Peter Hargreaves, motoring entrepreneur Robert Edmiston and hedge fund manager Crispin Odey were responsible for £14.9m of the £24.1m donations or loans given  to the Leave campaigns in the five months leading up to the referendum.

In his book The Bad Boys of Brexit, Banks admits that in 2015, he decided to pour millions into influencing British politics after his businesses in Britain and overseas, where he owns a number of diamond mines, “were doing really well.”

And the story doesn’t end there. A Channel 4 News investigation found that in the year following the Brexit referendum, Banks continued to lavish Farage with financial support. The insurance tycoon provided him with a furnished Chelsea home, a car and driver, and even money to promote him in the US.

Tories and Russian oligarchs

Nigel Farage’s ties to the ultra-wealthy are well-known, but then so are the Tories, who have long been entangled with Russian oligarchs.

In 2020, the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee noted how the UK appeared to have been seen as a “particularly favourable destination for Russian oligarchs and their money.” It added how Russian money was used to influence PR firms, charities, political interests, academia, and cultural institutions, contributing to a ‘reputation laundering’ process.

Lubov Chernukhin, a former banker and wife of President Putin’s former deputy finance minister Vladimir Chernukhin, was reportedly on a secret ‘advisory board’ which had direct access to Boris Johnson when he was PM, the chancellor Rishi Sunak and a host of other senior ministers. Lubov Chernukhin is said to have lobbied against higher tax for the ultra-rich and is the largest female donor in British political history, having donated £2 million to the Conservatives from 2012 to 2020. In September 2024, it emerged that Lubov Chernukhin gave £70,000 to Priti Patel’s Conservative leadership campaign only to see her knocked out in the first round of voting.

In 2021, a Labour party calculation, based on Electoral Commission information, estimated that since Boris Johnson had become prime minister, donors who had made money from Russia or Russians had given £1.93m to either the Tory party or constituency associations.

More recently in September, it emerged the Tories took £1.25 million from Sir Len Blavatnik’s firm just before the general election. Blavatnik, who was born in Ukraine during the Soviet era but who holds US and UK citizenship, is ranked 52nd richest person in the world. He was knighted in 2017 for services to philanthropy. He is said to have made billions from a partnership with BP in Russia. But his reputation took a hit when he was among individuals sanctioned by Ukraine, an ally of the UK, in December 2023. Despite this, the Tories saw it fit to accept Blavatnik’s cash.

In response to the revelation, the Liberal Democrats said that the Conservative Party “clearly have serious questions to answer over these donations,” while a Labour source accused the Tories of being hypocrites who have “learnt nothing.”

Just last month it was reported  that the shadow Attorney General Lord Wolfson KC, who was appointed to the role by Kemi Badenoch in November, is ‘acting for the Russian arm of a logistics giant closely involved in one of Vladimir Putin’s pet projects.’ The Lawyer magazine reported that Lord Wolfson KC was instructed to defend DP World Russia FZCO in the $14bn Ziyavudin Magomedov litigation before London’s Commercial Court. DP World Russia is a subsidiary of DP World, the international port and shipping company owned by the Dubai royal family. The Guardian has previously reported how DP World is a partner in Vladimir Putin’s northern sea route project, an Arctic shortcut between Europe and Asia.

Labour’s super-rich donors

But the increasing influence of wealth in UK politics is not just evident on the right but across the political spectrum. Labour, traditionally supported by trade unions, is seeing a sharp increase in private donations as union funding declines.

A 2023  openDemocracy report revealed that UK political parties declared over £93 million in donations, up from £52 million the previous year. The Tories led the pack, hauling in £44.5 million, while Labour followed with £21.6 million. The Lib Dems received £6 million, the Greens £610,000, and Reform £255,000.
Of the £21.5m received by Labour in 2023, just £5.9m came from the trade union movement, compared with £14.5m from companies and individuals – a huge increase on the previous year.

Just four sources contributed nearly half of Labour’s funds: Gary Lubner (£4.6m), David Sainsbury (£3.1m), Fran Perrin (£1m), and Dale Vince’s Ecotricity (£1m). In fact, just two individuals gave more to Labour than all the trade unions combined.

Ahead of its 2024 election landslide, Labour raked in a record £9.6 million, but only £2.4m of that came from the party’s 11 affiliated unions, far below the £4 million-plus they’ve donated in every election since 2015.

The union contribution came mainly from Usdaw and Unison, while others, including Unite, once Labour’s biggest backer, refused to contribute or endorse the party’s manifesto.

One particularly contentious donation came from Quadrature Capital, a hedge fund that donated £4 million just before campaign rules mandated weekly financial disclosures. Quadrature Capital is registered in London and invests for Quadrature Group, which is based in the Cayman Islands but pays UK corporation tax. It explained that it supported Labour due to the party’s commitment to the green transition and policies on climate action, social equity, and economic resilience. But critics argue that the fund’s investments in fossil fuels, private health firms, and arms manufacturers contradict Labour’s own principles.
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Yet amid this climate of rising political donors from super wealthy individuals and firms, Labour is reportedly considering proposals to limit donations to political parties, in an effort to tighten the rules around money in UK politics. The Institute for Public Policy Research has recommended a £100,000 annual cap for individuals and companies. In its manifesto, Labour committed to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”. Central to this promise is an aim to tighten protections around foreign interference in UK democracy.

Such a move is likely to be welcomed by voters, given their disproval of Elon Musk’s meddling in UK affairs. An exclusive poll for Left Foot Forward carried out by Savanta found that 47% of voters believe that the tech billionaire, who has posted a series of false claims about UK politics in recent weeks on his X platform, represents a threat to UK democracy. Around 31% of voters said they believed Musk does not represent a threat to UK democracy.

The problem with extreme wealth in politics

The growing influence of the super-rich in UK politics raises questions about the health of the country’s democracy. Labour’s Peter Mandelson once famously called the ultra-wealthy the “filthy rich.”

But what makes wealth “filthy”? Surely, there are mega-rich donors who are not corrupt and have genuine interests in the environment and other progressive values?

Professor Mary Mellor, author of Money: Myths, Truths and Alternatives, argues that the massive accumulation of wealth does not reflect an equivalent economic contribution.

“Oligarchs, filthy or not, indicate patterns of inequality that are socially destructive,” she writes.

Partied out

Membership of political parties has been declining from its peak in the early 1950s, when there were around 2.8m Conservative Party and 1m Labour Party members. Today, just 1% of the electorate belong to a political party, down from 3.8% in 1983.

While brief surges in membership, such as those seen with Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage, momentarily boost party affiliation, the long-term trend is clear – the super-rich are stepping in to fill the gap left by traditional supporters like unions and grassroots members.

This growing reliance on oligarch donations risks undermining the very fabric of democracy. With political parties no longer depending on membership fees or union backing, we risk wealthy individuals pushing policies that primarily serve their own interests rather than the people. 

As Senator Bernie Sanders warned – the United States is rapidly becoming an oligarchy run by billionaires out to enrich themselves.

“We are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society. Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, have so much wealth and so much power,” he said.

If this trend continues, the UK could find itself on a dangerous path towards plutocracy, where political power is concentrated in the hands of a few, rather than the people.

Heaven forbid we ever see a figure like Elon Musk meddling where they’re not wanted.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch