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According to the latest official figures, private donations to the British Labor Party will reach £6.5m in the second quarter of 2023, exceeding the total personal donations for the whole of last year.
According to the Electoral Commission, the largest single private donation to the country’s main opposition party this quarter was £3m from Lord David Sainsbury. The gift brings to £5m the total donations made by the former chairman of the eponymous supermarket chain to the Labor Party in the past 12 months.
Sainsbury was a major donor to Labour’s last government and was a minister in Tony Blair’s government from 1998 to 2006. He then distanced himself from Labor after it lost the 2010 general election and turned to the left.
The rise in individual donations comes as the party leads the ruling Conservatives by 18 percentage points in opinion polls ahead of a general election expected next year.
Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer is trying to divert the balance of donations away from unions, Labour’s traditional financial backers, which donated a total of £896,000 in the second quarter. The party’s other main source of income comes from dues paid by its 400,000 members.
Labor raised a total of £10.5m in the second quarter, with opposition taxpayers contributing £2.9m.
The Conservative Party raised £10.9m in the three months to June – all from private donations – including £5m from founder and chief executive Frank Hester. Phoenix Partners (TPP), a healthcare software company.
Alan Howard, the billionaire hedge fund manager who founded Brevan Howard Asset Management, donated £1m to the Conservative Party during this period.
Labor also received £2.2m in the second quarter from Gary Lubner, the former boss of car windscreen repair company Autoglass, helping the party’s total revenue from individual donors in three months to exceed £6 million raised in 2022.
Lubner told the Financial Times earlier this year that he wanted to give Labor enough financial help to ensure its return to power “in the long run”. Party officials expect the South African-born tycoon’s donations to total £5m before the general election.
In total, political parties received more than £24m in funding in the second quarter, according to the Electoral Commission, as they look to boost their war chest ahead of the upcoming election.
Labor’s latest annual report shows that £47.2m was raised in 2022, resulting in a £2.7m surplus, compared with a £5.2m loss the previous year.
The Conservative Party has lost £2.3m in 2022 in what officials say will be a “turbulent year”, with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss both forced to resign as prime minister and party leader.
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