Nearly a month back, at a time when candidates were still fighting for their seats, we reported on donations made to political parties during the first 3 weeks of campaigning for the 2024 general election. Now Labour have secured their victory, the full figures for the ‘prepoll period’ – spanning from May 30th to election day – have been released by the Electoral Commission.
Labour received by far the most donations
A look at the final weeks reveals that the Labour Party (combined with the Co-operative Party) racked up £9.8 million worth of donations by election day, more than five times that reported by the Conservative Party over the same time frame. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK continued to tie virtually neck and neck with final sums of £1.9 million, £1.7 million, and £1.6 million, respectively. The total sums donated to other parties were far lower; next in line were the Green Party, accepting £160,000, and the Scottish National Party with £127,998. *
Why true donation figures are likely to be higher
These numbers by themselves however don’t paint a full picture of party finances. For one, sometimes parties are late in submitting donations accepted during the prepoll period. After the 2019 general election, the Electoral Commission opened multiple investigations into incomplete or late submissions.
Secondly, only donations large enough to reach a certain threshold need to be officially reported. In 2023, this amount was raised from £7,500 to £11,180, possibly leaving a bigger proportion of donations undisclosed. Tallying all parties’ donations together, the total amount reported during the 2024 prepoll period was £15.2 million. It is noteworthy that this number is half the £30.7 million reported during the 2019 general election campaign.
However, the year of 2019 saw an unprecedented surge in reported donations, with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party (now Reform UK) all receiving record breaking amounts for their parties since donations first began being documented in 2001.
The landscape of UK party financing has been evolving
What this highlights is that donations made during any one campaign offer only a snapshot into wider trends – trends that are most revealing when looked at over a number of years.
For example, although accepting far less than Labour during the immediate build up to the election, the Conservative Party had been boosted by huge sums earlier in the year. In the first quarter of 2024, the Conservatives received £8.8 million, Labour £7.4 million, the Liberal Democrats £2.5 million, and Reform UK £25,000.
In fact, the increase of money flowing into Labour is a stark change of trend for UK party financing. Between 2001 and 2019, the UK saw a rapid growth rate in the total donations made to political parties overall, even when accounting for factors such as inflation. What’s more is that this growth has been disproportionately driven by an increase in donations from wealthy individuals, or “mega-donors”.
Over the years the Conservatives have benefited the most from this growth while Labour saw a decline in donations, particularly those of the mega-donor type, between 2010 and 2019.
This makes it even more striking that during their latest campaign Labour took in £6.7 million from mega-donors, making up 68.5% of their total prepoll tally. This amount is about 42 times more than the £159,442 they took in from the same type of donors during their 2019 campaign. The tide has turned with an influx of wealthy individuals now backing Labour, some of whom previously donated to the Conservatives.
More donations reported from Unincorporated Associations in this election
The £1.9 million in donations received by the Conservatives during the 2024 campaign included 52.3% from wealthy individuals, along with 26.5% from companies.
More remarkable perhaps was how a remaining 20.0% came from Unincorporated Associations (UAs). Although a permissible donor type, UAs have, for good reason, attracted suspicion about their involvement in the funding of political parties. Transparency is the norm for most UK donors. Yet, with less disclosure requirements, the origins of money coming from UAs is far murkier.
In 2019, UAs donated £98,500 during the build-up to the December election, with the Conservatives taking £88,000 and Labour the remaining £10,500. Or, at least, these are the donations we can know of, in that they totalled above the £7,500 reporting threshold. This time around – with the higher threshold in place – the Conservatives were the only party to report donations from UAs, accepting a total of £373,500; about 4 times the 2019 amount.
With their opaque internal finances, it’s becoming ever more vital we close the UA loophole in our regulation.
Question marks remain over the influence of big donors
Election period or not, the more money a party receives over time, the more they have available to spend on hiring staff, policy development, advertising, hosting events for members, and so on. More money does not, however, guarantee electoral success. For example, in the run-up to the 2019 general election Lord David Sainsbury made the single biggest political donation in history, giving £8m to the Liberal Democrats. However, the party went on to make a net loss of seats at the general election.
Still, it appears that over the years the landscape of UK party financing has been shifting. As many big donors redirect their funds to Labour, questions persist over the influence and motives of some wealthy individuals, along with other non-elected entities and their large investments into our political parties.
*Numbers calculated by the ERS using data made available through the Electoral Commission donations search tool.
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