It is Time to Clean Up Party Political Funding

This article was published in The Times 11th February 2022

We Need party funding reform to clean up politics

Denis MacShane

?The UK’s second largest trade union, Unite, to threaten to withhold financial support from the Labour Party unless Sir Keir Starmer obeys the wishes of the union’s new general secretary and intervenes in an obscure dispute in Coventry between refuse collectors and the local council. This extraordinary threat highlights again the problem of financing democracy in Britain.

???????????Across much of the democratic world from Europe to Australia, decisions have been taken in recent years that the only way to clean up politics is to provide public?funding for political parties. Britain is an outlier.

Boris Johnson is under pressure over the donations Russian oligarchs make to the Tory Party. He is threatening to tighten up rules on Russian money flowing through so-called Londongrad if Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine. But If the Russian president does not send soldiers into Ukraine then the implication is the Russian money flowing to the Tory party will be welcome.

???????????The UK is the only country in the world where money buys the right to be a legislator, a member of Parliament. Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats have all put big donors into the House of Lords where they enact the laws of the land. The excuse is that?as long as the donations are listed they are OK.

“Money has no smell” is an old political saying but the list of Tory donors who are lords, or have been knighted by Her Majesty is beginning to stink.

???????????A donation of ￡3 million is apparently the going rate for a Tory peerage. Labour might also look at the number of trade union leaders, some of very little distinction, who have been made Lords but whose unions are major donors to the Labour Party.

???????????I spent hours of sheer boredom as a Labour MP and minister sitting with businessmen – and they nearly are all men – who had made a fortune and now wanted a gong.

???????????As soon as Labour looked like losing an election they were off to find another party to declare fealty to, if an honour might come along in exchange for a cheque.

???????????The only way to clean up the financing of politics is to get democracy to pay for democracy. There are workable systems in other countries. None is perfect but he cost is small compared to the corrosive loss of faith in democratic party politics when Russians, or hedge fund billionaires, or trade union bosses feel they can swagger around telling elected politicians what to do.?

???????????But which party will have the courage to wean itself off big money and clean up political financing? Voters would approve.

Denis MacShane was a Labour MP for 18 years and is a former Minister of Europe. His latest book is?Must Labour Always Lose??published by Claret Press.

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