The recent cacophony surrounding ‘freebies’ given by Labour party donors to Labour MPs since 2019 is just the latest in a long stream of financial scandals coming out of Westminster. It’s not just an issue for one party, former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson was lucky enough to be able to splash out on ‘a marquee, Portaloos, waiting staff, flowers, a South African barbecue and an ice-cream van’ at his wedding thanks to a conservative party donor.
People who donate directly to the parties have also found themselves rewarded, with the Sunday Times finding that 16 of the Conservative Party’s recent treasurers were appointed to the House of Lords after donating £3,000,000 each to the party.
Before ‘freebiegate’ there was the revelation that Conservative peer Michelle Mone had secretly profited from a multi-million government contract for PPE during the Covid-19 pandemic. Then there were the revelations that came out of the Pandora Papers, which shed light on Conservative party donors’ alleged links to corruption.
With this endless procession of scandals painting such a shameful picture of the people we’ve elected to represent us, it’s not a surprise that the public are concerned about money in politics. In fact, the Electoral Commission found a majority think there’s a lack of transparency around party donations.
Why does it matter if MPs are receiving gifts?
So, MPs have received a few expensive presents. Does it really matter all that much? Our answer is that there are a number of reasons to be worried about ‘freebie-gate’.
There’s the obvious issue of the cognitive dissonance of an MP accepting Taylor Swift tickets for free while the average voter has to save up for months – especially in the context of a particularly tough few years for the British public.
Likewise, it would be illegal for a civil servant to accept a similar gift, and against many workplace rules in the private sector.
But beyond the obvious moral outrage stirred up by the appearance of one rule for us and one for them, it’s important to remember that party donors aren’t necessarily giving these gifts out of the goodness of their hearts.
Just as with cash donations, we must ask: what do these wealthy donors expect in return? The worry is that big donors are trading gifts for influence, when MPs should be acting in the interests of the electorate – not just those with the deepest pockets.
The recent scandal also touches on issues surrounding the transparency of party donations – and what does and doesn’t have to be declared.
Gifts are just the tip of the iceberg
There are significant loopholes that mean donations – and the big donors behind them – can remain annoymous. And in 2023, our previous government introduced legislation which made party funding even more opaque, with the amount an individual can donate without the party having to declare it raised from £7,500 to £11,180. That’s nearly a 50% increase.
Where do we go from here?
It’s time to start moving forward, toward a more transparent, fairer system of political funding. But what might that look like?
For a start, political parties should introduce caps on donations so that we can reduce the amount of money in politics and stamp out the culture of big donors.
The threshold for reporting donations to the Electoral commission should also be reduced, ensuring that there’s greater transparency surrounding party funding.
And parties should be required, by law, to conduct checks on the true source of their donations, ridding our political system of ‘dirty money’ and helping to restore public trust.
These are just a few ways that party funding should be cleaned up. There’s a long way to go, but it’s time for the government to make a meaningful change to the way that money – whether in the form of cash or gifts – flows in and out of politics.
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