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Labor and the Conservative Party have amassed huge amounts of party political funds in preparation for what is expected to be the most expensive general election campaign in history.
Figures released by the Electoral Commission earlier this year showed that all political parties received £93m in donations in 2023, almost double the £52m raised in 2022.
It has been a particularly profitable year for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labor Party. The party has raised around £13.6 million in private donations (a record high for the party), out of a total fundraising total of £31 million.
The Conservative Party, which has traditionally enjoyed higher fundraising income than Labour, raised a total of £48 million, including around £35.8 million in private donations.
The Liberal Democrats raised around £8.4 million, while Reform UK received £255,000 from six donations in total.
The financial gap between the two major parties, which has narrowed in recent years, would be equalized to some extent by rules limiting the total amount that parties can spend during an election period.
The government increased this from £19 million to £34 million last year to reflect inflation and other factors. The spending limits apply for the so-called “restriction period” – the 365 days leading up to a general election.
Louise Edwards, head of regulation at the Electoral Commission, said: “There is no limit to how much each political party can raise, but spending limits are put in place before elections to ensure a level playing field.” .
As a result, Labor is actually close to being able to match the spending power of the Conservatives – at least to the extent that each center party can spend. Labor sources have revealed that they plan to continue fundraising to get as close to the £34m cap as possible.
To boost their spending power, both major parties have been working hard to court individual donors: Labour received just £5.9m from trade unions, its traditional source of income, last year, but donations from individuals and corporations almost doubled in the same period.
Of that £13.6 million, about £10 million came from just four sources: Autoglass founder Gary Rabner said he wanted £4.5 million to help keep Labour in power; supermarket tycoon Sir David Sainsbury gave just over £3 million; Sainsbury’s daughter Fran Perrin donated £1 million; and green energy company Ecotricity donated £1 million.
Meanwhile, around £15m of the Conservative Party’s £35.8m in private donations came through just two people. One is healthtech entrepreneur Frank Hester, who has personally donated £5 million, and David’s cousin Lord John Sainsbury, who supports the Labor Party. His will included a bequest of £10.2 million to the Conservative Party.
A further £5m donation was made by the Phoenix Partnership. Mr Hester, who apologized in March after he reportedly told Labor MP Diane Abbott that it made him want to “hate all black women”, is the company’s chief executive.
Mr. Hester acknowledged that he had made disrespectful comments toward Mr. Abbott, but said, “The criticism had nothing to do with her gender or the color of her skin.”
There is a cap on spending for parties overall, but there is an additional amount that each candidate within a constituency can spend. This averages out to £57,000 per candidate over a full parliamentary term, of which up to £19,000 can be spent during the six-week period of the general election campaign the country is currently in.