Who’s funding the forthcoming election? From supermarket heirs to entrepreneurs

Wealthy donors aiming to woo Sir Keir Starmer’s party ahead of its likely win in next month’s election have helped Labour overtake the Tory party in receiving political donations, latest figures show.

Labour has landed £15.5m in funding so far this year from individuals, companies, unions and others, exceeding the £9.9m handed to the Conservatives.

While the Tories have historically found more favour with companies and individuals, Labour typically receives substantially higher donations from trade unions.

They contributed 26 per cent of the Labour Party’s fundraising since the last election in 2019, at £25.3m. Overall, Tory donations are still well ahead at £111.9m, topping Labour’s figure of £98.7m.

However, The Independent has found that individual donors have been dwindling in their support of the Tories, and flocking to Labour – with some even switching sides.

While major donors such as controversial businessman Frank Hester have stayed loyal to the Tories (to the tune of £15m), others like Crystal Palace investor Jeremy Hosking have turned to back competing parties, including Reclaim and Reform.

Meanwhile, the two Lord Sainsburys – cousins and heirs to the fortune – have planted their cash in opposite camps.

Figures out earlier this week showed Labour received £4.4m between 6-12 June while the Conservatives received just £292,500.

Read on to find information on the big-name donors staking their cash on the major parties.

Frank Hester donated £10m to the Tories last year, according to Electoral Commission records.

He individually donated £5m to Mr Sunak’s party in May and gave another £5m via his IT company in November.

Mr Hester came under fire earlier this year accused of saying in 2019 that Diane Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving black MP made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.

He has not denied making the remarks, but claimed they had “nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.

After his comments came to light, the Conservative Party controversially accepted a third sum of £5m that has yet to be declared, as the Electoral Commission only publishes lists of donations every quarter. It takes his total donations to £15m.

Mr Hester founded The Phoenix Partnership (TPP) in 1997 in an effort “to improve efficiency and standards in the UK healthcare system”. The company is worth £1bn after winning more than £400m of NHS and prison contracts in the last eight years.

Mr Hester was approached for comment.

The two largest private donors to the Tories and Labour in the last year were both called Lord Sainsbury and belong to the family that founded the supermarket giant.

The late Lord John Sainsbury, a Conservative peer, left a record £10m to the Conservatives in his will, the biggest single sum ever given to the party.

His cousin Lord David Sainsbury has also been the most generous private donor to the Labour Party, donating £7.5m in total since late 2022.

Just this week, he donated a further £2.5m to the Labour Party, marking the highest donation to any political party during the election campaign.

Lord David Sainsbury was a major donor when the party was last in power, serving as a minister in Sir Tony Blair’s government.

He later cut off his support to the party as it shifted to the left under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. He broke the record for the largest political donation in British history in 2019, donating £8m to the Liberal Democrats, but returned to the fold in 2022.

Former Autoglass boss and Belron CEO Gary Lubner has donated £5.9m to Labour’s election war chest since 2020.

Mr Lubner donated £900,000 in a single sum during the second week of election campaigning this month.

Speaking to the Financial Times last year, the South African-born businessman – whose grandparents were Jewish refugees – said he had been appalled by the scale of antisemitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and praised Sir Keir Starmer for ridding the party of its “cancer”.

Mr Lubner added he wishes to give away “the vast majority” of his wealth to charitable and progressive causes.

He has also been vocal in his support for Israel and has donated to several pro-Israeli organisations.

Mr Lubner’s son, Jack, is chair of the Labour Party’s youth wing.

Lubov Chernukhin is one of the biggest donors to the Tories, and the most generous female donor, giving at least £2.3m to the Tories in her lifetime.

Since the last election alone, Ms Chernukhin has given £830,000 to the Tory Party and MP Brandon Lewis.

Leaked Pandora Papers documents reveal her personal wealth comes from her husband Vladimir, a former Russian finance minister.

Ms Chernukhin has been pictured with Theresa May and Liz Truss and once paid £160,000 at a 2014 fundraising auction to play tennis with then PM David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

Russian-born Ms Chernukhin is a British citizen and is the director and owner of Capital Construction and Development Ltd.

A spokesperson for Ms Chernukhin said: “As a British citizen, Lubov Chernukhin is entitled to make donations to political parties as she sees fit. All her donations have been declared in accordance with the rules of the Electoral Commission and derive from her own private wealth.

“Ms Chernukhin is a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin’s regime and is a staunch opponent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Rosemary Said, who appears on the Electoral Commission records as Ann R Said, has donated £770k to the Tory Party since the last election.

Her husband Wafic Said, is an arms fixer involved in a huge multibillion-pound deal between Saudi Arabia and the UK in the 1980s.

Mr Said helped broker Britain’s biggest arms sale – the Al-Yamamah deal – signed by the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1985.

The deal was subject to an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office but the probe was discontinued in 2006 after an intervention by Tony Blair amid concerns relations with the Saudi kingdom were being hindered.

Before 2000, Syrian-born billionaire Mr Said had himself donated to the Conservative Party, before rules were put in place only allowing those on the UK electoral register to give to political parties.

Ms Said, a UK citizen, is herself independently wealthy and her father was formerly a donor to the Conservative Party.

Ms Said was approached for comment.

Mike Bloomberg, the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg LP,  donated £150,000 to the Labour Party through Bloomberg Trading Facility – the company’s platform for trading financial investment products in November 2023.

The donation is the largest UK political donation that Bloomberg has made since the Brexit referendum in 2016.

In 2022, Mr Bloomberg donated £100,000 to the Conservatives.

Mr Bloomberg is a vocal critical of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. In 2017, he said that Brexit was the “single stupidest thing any country has ever done” apart from the election of Donald Trump as US president.

Lawrence Fox’s Reclaim Party has been heavily funded by Brexit-backing businessman Jeremy Hosking, who has donated more than £3.8m to the party.

He is reportedly worth £375m and has previously donated over £515,000 to Reform UK since the last election. The businessman also gave £50,000 to short-lived prime minister Liz Truss.

The Reclaim donor also offered £5,000 to every candidate seeking re-election who signs up to the party’s “four culture pledges”.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Marco Longhi and Karl McCartney have accepted the cash.

Mr Hosking is a steam train fanatic and possesses the only privately-owned train in the country.

John Guthrie, a property tycoon from Scarborough, donated £20,000 to the Liberal Democrats in March 2024, after previously pledging £225,000 to the Tories since the last election.

He previously donated a substantial £4m to the Tory party in 2010.

Mr Guthrie made recent donations through his company, family-owned property group Broadland Properties.

Mr Guthrie, 83, is worth an estimated £371m. He and his family are listed at 344 in The Sunday Times Rich List 2024.

Broadland Properties owns Hever Castle in Kent, which was Anne Boleyn’s childhood home.

John Caudwell, the billionaire founder of Phones4U, has publicly voiced his support to Labour after previously donating £500,000 to the Tory party in 2019.

Mr Caudwell has said he will be voting for Labour, citing his amazement at Sir Keir Starmer’s transformation of the party.

The businessman said he had supported the Conservatives for 51 years but had been “despairing” about their performance for many years.

Last September, Mr Caudwell said he would not back Rishi Sunak after the “madness” of his U-turn on green policies.

He has a net worth of more than £2bn and has yet to donate any cash to the Labour Party, according to donation records.

Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk