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Gordon Brown called for caps on large political donations in the UK
Writing in The Guardian, the former prime minister argued that the rise of multimillion-pound contributions is skewing electoral competition and eroding public trust. He urged ministers to add a donations cap to the bill now before the House of Lords.
Gordon Brown urged the UK to impose limits on large political donations, arguing that money can heavily shape campaigns and access to power. In an opinion piece published by The Guardian, the former prime minister said the latest funding received by Reform should be treated as a final warning.
Brown pointed back to the 2010 election, when he said there was a sharp imbalance in resources between the parties. He wrote that Labour entered that contest carrying £25m in debt from 2005 and was able to spend only £8m, compared with £17m for the Conservatives. He added that the gap was especially damaging because Labour could not invest in the newer forms of online advertising that were then emerging.
He argued that the concentration of donations has since become more pronounced. Brown said that a decade ago only 1% of individuals and companies making political donations gave around £1m or more, while by 2024 that share had risen to 35%. He also said the latest record-breaking donations from crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne to Reform are worth more than all donations made to UK political parties in 2025 combined.
Brown wrote that higher election spending almost certainly improves the chances of electoral success. For that reason, he said it is not enough for the government to have asked the Electoral Commission to review campaign spending limits. He called for broader financing reforms recommended by the Commission on the UK’s Future, which he chaired, especially a cap on donations in the representation of the people bill currently before the House of Lords.
He said nearly half of voters would look more favourably on a party that introduced a donations limit, and argued that the open solicitation of money in exchange for political access, possible influence, public offices or honours damages democracy and weakens trust.
Brown noted that a donations cap had already been recommended by the independent Hayden Phillips review in 2007 and by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2011, and that it has backing from senior figures including John Major. He also wrote that in December 2025 the UK and at least 59 other countries co-sponsored a UN resolution urging states to consider limits on donations as an anti-corruption measure.
As international comparisons, he cited Canada, where annual donations to political parties are capped at about £930, France, where donations are capped at £6,400 a year for parties and £3,900 for presidential campaigns, and Italy, where the annual limit is £85,600 per person or company.
Brown also referred to Andy Burnham, who had suggested a figure around £500,000 before becoming prime minister, and to an amendment backed in September by Stella Creasy and 63 other MPs that proposed an annual cap of £500,000, falling to £100,000 after one calendar year. That amendment was later withdrawn.
In Brown’s view, the new bill should give the secretary of state the power to set a donation cap after consulting the Ethics and Integrity Commission, formerly the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and the Electoral Commission.
He also drew a distinction between multimillion-pound private donations and union funding, arguing that trade union contributions come from many individual members making small payments and retaining the right to opt out, which in his view does not present the same democratic risk.
On overall spending, Brown said that outside general election years Labour and the Conservatives have recently spent around £60m and £55m respectively. He cited Transparency International UK, which calculated that before 2024 total spending in election years was about £74m for Labour and £87m for the Conservatives. In 2024, he added, that organisation said Labour’s expenditure surged to a record £103m while Conservative spending was £74m, an imbalance Brown said was paradoxically enabled by the previous Conservative government’s decision to raise general election spending limits.
Brown also wrote that Labour donors he has met support a cap and told him that their larger-than-usual contributions were intended to level the playing field between parties. He further cited a Transparency International UK modelling tool and said a cap of £50,000 a year would cut down large donations while still leaving parties with enough money to campaign effectively and fairly, without additional public funding.
For Brown, changes to party funding should be the starting point for a broader cleanup of British politics. He criticised the fact that about 100 paid lobbyists sit in an unreformed House of Lords and said lobbying disclosure requirements remain too weak.
Sources
About this piece. Written by El Notero with AI assistance, from reporting published by the outlet cited above. El Notero did no original reporting on this story.
