Every few weeks sees a new political donations scandal. The system needs fundamental reform. The Institute for Constitutional and Democratic Research’s new report sets out a simple remedy: cap all political donations at a level affordable to the poorest.
The BBC keeps a running list of scandals going back to the early 1990s. The last 12 months alone have seen revelations in the Pandora Papers (special access to the prime minister for high-level donors), cash for honours (“once you pay your £3m, you get your peerage”), and Russian donations (to name but a few).
Our analysis, based on reporting by openDemocracy, charts a correlation between donations to the governing party and favourable government policy. Property developers gave more than £60m between 2010 and 2020. They received indirect subsidies of around £50bn during the same period. New laws made it easier for developers to get projects approved (even against opposition from local people) and inflated the cost of housing. From 2010 to 2019 the governing party received £3.5m from Russian-linked donors. During that time “the UK government… actively avoided looking for evidence that Russia interfered [in the UK’s democratic processes]”. Ministers blocked weapons sales to Ukraine against the advice of army chiefs. More than £1m from donors with interests in fossil fuels correlates with authorisations for new oil exploration in the North Sea and (despite the “net zero” rhetoric) and the highest fossil-fuel subsidies in the G20.
