‘Money talks’: UK politics

A history of donations to the Conservative Party, with some strings attached.

Photo by Jordhan Madec on Unsplash

"We don't want to give Marxists a load of doe [sic] for nothing!" read the text message that property tycoon, ex-pornographer and the Daily Express owner Richard Desmond sent to Housing Minister Robert Jenrick in November 2019, urging him to rush through approval of Mr Desmond’s £1 billion housing development. The planning permission, which gave the green light to a 1,500-home development at the former Westferry printing works, was granted in January 2020 – just in time to save Mr Desmond from paying a £40 million levy to the Labour council of Tower Hamlets (those “Marxists”), due to a new Community Infrastructure Levy coming into force the very next day. The release of these text exchanges came after the Housing Minister quashed his planning approval in May as it was “unlawful by reason of apparent bias.” Mr Jenrick’s action against the advice of the planning inspector could suggest more was at play than just the “merits of the case,” which he claimed were the sole driving force behind his decisions.

Mr Jenrick’s actions demonstrate more than just a hint of political impropriety. A £12,000 donation by Mr Desmond to the Conservative Party just 12 days after permission was granted raised suspicion, but Mr Jenrick’s seat beside, and lengthy conversation with, Mr Desmond at the Tory fundraising dinner at the Savoy in November 2019, all but condemned him in the public eye. Mr Jenrick’s concession of “apparent bias” affirms public concerns about informal and undue influence in the Housing Minister’s decision.

In the current climate, Mr Jenrick’s blunder is all the more damning. Tower Hamlets is one of the UK’s poorest and most ethnically diverse boroughs: the child poverty rate is the highest in London at 57%, whilst BAME groups make up 55% of the population. Mr Jenrick’s actions not only denied the community of the £40 million the levy would have raised to be spent on schools, hospitals and other infrastructure, but also approved a housing development of which only 21% of the flats were affordable homes, 14% below the minimum target. As cries of racial and social injustice ring in the ears of government officials, Mr Jenrick’s willingness to sacrifice funding for an underprivileged area in order to aid financial backers is indicative of the government’s reluctance to cater for all elements of society in their purported One Nation party.

This is not a one-off affair. Accusations of back-room, closed-door personal agreements in return for financial donations have been a political pattern that has plagued the Tory party. From George Obsorne’s alleged solicitation of a £50,000 donation from a Russian oligarch on a yacht in the Mediterranean in 2008; to claims in July 2019 that the then newly elected Party leader Boris Johnson’s policies held a conflict of interest due to his financial donors – “cash for access” seems to be a policy of the modern day Tory Party. Mr Desmond himself recently claimed in an interview with The Times that Mr Johnson had promised to change gambling rules so that Mr Desmond’s “Health Lottery” could raise its jackpot to £1 million.

Cash for favours is a systemic issue, and the quest for financial transparency in UK politics has been a slow and arduous one. The Electoral Commission’s publication of all financial donations over £7,500 goes some way to reveal the role of donors in politics, but a shroud still envelops the true extent of these financial influences. For the small price of £50,000 a year, donors to the Conservative Party get to meet the prime minister and a plethora of other leading ministers at quarterly Leader’s Group dinners, where informal, off-the-record political discussions inevitably occur. Almost 20% of this elite group of Tory funders have received Royal Honours. Despite the polemic over this group during David Cameron’s administration, when he hosted these dinners at his Downing Street flat and Chequers, the Conservatives have stopped honouring the pledge made by Mr Cameron to publish membership lists of this group.

If the infamous concept of a “magic money tree,” an embarrassing metaphor used by Theresa May in 2017, does not exist with regards to public funding, it certainly finds form in the sphere of private financial donations. With regards to the Tory Party, this tree certainly seems to be an evergreen: in the last decade, the elite Tory dining club alone has supplied the party with more than £130 million, openDemocracy reveals. How can any government purport to represent its constituents whilst simultaneously owing its allegiance to underhand, private financial agreements? In 2016, writing before the result of the EU Referendum, Duncan Hames of the Guardian warned that, left unchecked, this pattern of vast private donations (in that instance to both Remain and Leave campaigns), might mean trust in politics was “irretrievably lost.” Without doubt, following the numerous controversies over financial influence since that referendum, public trust in British politics truly is in jeopardy.

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