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UK unions split over a political donations cap after huge gifts to Reform UK
Britain’s union leadership is divided over whether to support limits on party funding. The argument intensified after £72 million in donations to Reform UK and fresh calls to tighten political finance rules.
Britain’s union movement has opened a debate over possible limits on political donations, with senior figures divided as large contributions to Reform UK sharpen scrutiny of party funding, according to The Guardian.
Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak told the TUC annual conference in Brighton that the government should act to prevent the wealthiest individuals from distorting politics. He said the recent donations had created a serious challenge for British democracy.
According to The Guardian, Labour-linked unions are drafting a statement on political funding that is expected to go before the TUC general council, but union sources said there are major disagreements among general secretaries over the way forward.
Some unions fear that a cap on domestic donations could later be used by a future rightwing government to restrict union funding as well. The GMB is among those with those concerns, The Guardian reported.
On Sunday, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham broke with that line and backed a cap on individual donations. The debate intensified after Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo, described as crypto billionaires, gave £36 million each to Reform UK within 24 hours, for a combined £72 million, an unprecedented sum in British political history, according to The Guardian.
Nowak argued that those donations are not comparable to small sums contributed by workers through their unions. He called for a broader clean-up of political finance that does not push workers aside but does curb the influence of the super-rich. He also said donations should not be accepted from people who neither live nor pay taxes in Britain.
He further criticized a bill before parliament that would allow overseas British donors to give up to £100,000 and said the government should go further in addressing foreign funding of political advertising.
The Guardian reported that Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice declined to say when Ben Delo, who had been based in Hong Kong, returned to the UK, and also did not specify how much time Harborne, who lives in Thailand, spends in Britain. Tice said he was confident the party had complied with current and proposed donation rules.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson criticized the idea of a retrospective cap, calling it unfair. At the same time, he questioned the motives of Reform UK’s donors and suggested they could want the party to take a pro-crypto stance.
Alongside Unite, Unison also spoke out against billionaire influence in politics. Its general secretary, Andrea Egan, accused Nigel Farage of turning to crypto billionaires in an effort to undermine British democracy, according to The Guardian.
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.
