A top Tory donor who gave £100,000 to back Boris Johnson said he will not give money again, as he accused the Conservatives of failing to grow the economy.
Hotelier Sir Rocco Forte, who helped fund the 2019 election, said there is “no point” donating to Rishi Sunak’s party.
Asked if he would give money again, he told GB News: “No. What’s the point of having a Conservative government which is following policies which have been followed for the last 15 years and haven’t delivered good growth?”
Sir Rocco, chairman of the luxury Rocco Forte hotel chain, was among a slew of business leaders urging the prime minister to cancel a rise in corporation tax which took effect this month.
He backed a letter to Mr Sunak from backbench Tory MPs arguing that the increase – from 19 per cent to 25 per cent – would hold back economic growth and destroy jobs.
Mr Forte said: “We have a sort of social democratic government in parliament. We don’t have a Conservative government and there’s no one who really believes in driving the economy and changing the system to do that.”
He suggested the Nigel Farage-backed Reform UK “will take votes” from the Conservatives, which could force the government to change direction. But Sir Rocco said he has not considered donating to Reform yet.
He said: “Reform UK is sort of a protest party which will take votes from the Conservative Party and if it’s allowed to grow to the level the Brexit party did, it could force the Conservatives into a different direction.”
Sir Rocco also said he was “not a fan” of chancellor Jeremy Hunt. “Everything is being blamed on Liz Truss. The thing that spooked the markets, more than anything else, was the subsidy on energy costs, which then was forecast to be 150 billion,” he said.
“We’ve continued subsidising energy costs and it hasn’t cost anything like that. It coincided with the Bank of England, maybe on purpose, announcing quantitative tightening on the same day as the mini-budget. Obviously, she (Liz Truss) rushed but things should have been taken much more quietly and steadily.”
Sir Rocco previously paid for a £12,000 party at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair to celebrate Mr Johnson’s victory in the Tory leadership contest.
