Scandal-hit Tory donor opens wallet to Starmer
Exclusive: Major blow for Rishi Sunak as tycoon who donated £750,000 opens wallet to Starmer – and hotelier who gifted £100,000 says 'incompetence' is driving backers away
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Your support makes all the difference.A scandal-hit Conservative Party donor has said he will open his wallet to Labour in the run-up to the next election.
Mohamed Amersi, who with his partner has donated £750,000 to the Tories, revealed he would give money to Labour politicians.
The Independent understands that Keir Starmer’s party will not accept donations from the telecoms tycoon – but that it could allow its individual MPs to do so.
Mr Amersi, a multi-millionaire who backed Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign was accused of “attempted blackmail, bribery, corruption and dirty money” by a senior Tory MP in a Commons debate in June.
Telecoms tycoon Mr Amersi told The Independent: “I feel that the country needs help in many places in the North, in the East, where societies are broken. Crime, joblessness, poverty ... these are all huge problems. So whoever is best placed and has a strategy on how best to deal with their constituency, I’m happy to support.
“If a Labour MP comes and says: ‘Look, I have been an MP here and I need money to help with my outreach, can you help?’ I will do it.”
His intervention comes as new analysis reveals the prime minister is being forced to rely on a dwindling pool of donors, as support for the Conservatives drains away and opinion polls show the party is on course to be booted out at the next election.
An astonishing four-fifths of all individual donations made to the Conservative Party since Mr Sunak entered Downing Street have come from just 10 wealthy people, according to an analysis by The Independent.
That figure was much lower under his predecessors Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron – and suggests the party is becoming more “heavily reliant” on a small group of supporters under Mr Sunak than under other recent Tory prime ministers.
Sir Rocco Forte, who gave £100,000 to the party to help fund the last general election, accused the party of reaping what it had sowed, claiming that the government’s “incompetence” had driven donors away.
“This is not a Conservative government – they are wishy-washy social democrats whose message and politics do not help Britain. Why should anyone want to support a party that does not stand up for business?” he said.
“There is a lack of impetus and competence which does not surprise me has led to an increasing lack of Tory donors and declining Tory coffers.”
He added: “I will not be giving any money to the Tory party this election.”
Another Tory donor, who has also decided not to back them financially this election, said he was dismayed by their incompetence and the whiff of corruption which Mr Sunak has not managed to dislodge.
As well as lambasting the Tories’ “major failure” on housing, he said: “I cannot support a party which has people like Nadine Dorries, who is interested in herself above all else. I want people who will put their country first. They do not deserve the money they have had previously.
“Thirteen years is a long time and it has ended in a sense of failing.”
The 10 super-rich backers have given a combined sum of £10.6m to the Tories since Mr Sunak became PM – accounting for 83 per cent of the £12.7m received from individuals since he took charge.
Under Mr Johnson, the £13.4m given by the top 10 donors equalled only 24 per cent of the £55.4m accepted from all individuals during his premiership, which lasted just under three years.
Under Mrs May, the top 10 backers gave £16.8m – 34 per cent of the £48.7m accepted from all individual donors. Under Mr Cameron, the £23.8m given by the top 10 individuals was 27 per cent of the £86.3m accepted overall.
Mr Amersi said he had stopped donating to the central party in favour of individual Conservative MPs.
“I’m now saying I don’t want to give money blind to CCHQ,” he said, adding that there was “no accountability” on how the money was spent.
“So I have decided I will support and I have supported individual MPs and local Conservative constituency associations.”
He said he would “consider donating to Tory, Labour or Lib Dem MPs if they demonstrated an existing track record of outstanding service to their constituents or ... (had) a powerful and convincing vision”.
He said he had yet to donate to a Labour MP but suggested that was because “nobody has come to me from Labour”.
With Labour on course to win the keys to Downing Street next year, Mr Amersi denied he was acting for short-term political “gain”.
He added: “Although I continue to be a member of the Tory party, [the] constitution allows me, as I understand it, to be a member of or donate to another political party.”
Mr Amersi has previously accused the Conservatives of running a system of “access capitalism” when it comes to donations, which the party denies.
In June former Conservative cabinet minister David Davis used parliamentary privilege to make allegations against Mr Amersi, who made a fortune in Russia, claiming he had “a long history of involvement in corruption, bribery and in buying access to politicians.”
Responding to the claims at the time, Mr Amersi told The Independent the former cabinet minister Mr Davis was "senile" and a "liar".
“David Davis is senile and needs to get mental counselling – he is a liar,” he said. “His evidence about how much money I have given to the Conservatives is wrong; his evidence that I am mired in corruption is wrong; his evidence that I am a bully is wrong. He is the bully.
“He needs to look himself in the mirror and award himself the prize of being the biggest bully of the year for using Parliamentary privilege.”
Although he is offering to fund individual Labour MPs rather than the party itself, it is thought the Labour Party would refuse any donations from Mr Amersi.
Gareth Quarry, a former Conservative donor who defected to Labour, previously told The Independent that “dozens” of leading business figures – including Tory backers – had approached him asking how they could help to put Sir Keir Starmer in No 10.
Tory donations slumped by £3.6m to just £18.1m during 2022, Mr Johnson’s final tumultuous year in charge. Liz Truss brought in only three big donations over £100,000 during her disastrous six weeks in charge at No 10.
Tory grandee Michael Heseltine, a former deputy prime minister, told The Independent he wanted to see “a wider spread of support”, warning that a broader range of smaller donations may have dried up because of the mess left by Mr Johnson and Ms Truss, as well as the pressure on donors’ wallets.
He said: “The party is having a difficult time. I think [Mr Sunak]’s brought a degree of sanity back – but he inherited a difficult position. And with the pressure on living standards, it’s understandable that donations are restricted to those with greater ability to make them.”
He added: “One would want to see a wider spread of support. But you have to raise money however you can and weather the difficult periods when they arise.”
The Tories have been trailing Labour in the polls by between 15 and 20 points in recent months. Mr Sunak has been able to get the party finances back on track with a small number of major new sponsors – such as the £5m given by Egyptian-born billionaire Mohamed Mansour and £2m from Amit Lohia, the Indian-born chemical magnate.
But campaign groups also said The Independent’s analysis – based on data from the Electoral Commission – was “dangerous for democracy” because it risked the perception that Mr Sunak was “beholden” to a small number of very wealthy people.
Tom Brake, director of pressure group Unlock Democracy, said: “It proves exactly how dependent the prime minister is on the whim of a small number of very rich and influential donors. It’s very dangerous for democracy. Their generosity isn’t charity.”
Steve Goodrich, of Transparency International UK, also argued that the Tories’ dependence on a small group of super-rich people was dangerous. “When political parties become heavily reliant on a small number of big donors it creates the perception, and quite possibly the reality, they are beholden to narrow sectional interests.”
Mr Mansour, a former minister in Hosni Mubarak’s Egyptian government, is the biggest single backer of the Sunak era. The UK-based retail magnate said he gave £5m in May because the PM “understands how growth is generated”.
Alasdair Locke – the ninth-biggest donor of the Sunak era after giving £100,000 in February – told The Independent that he wanted to support the current PM because he was doing a “perfectly competent job”.
Others in the top 10 donors list for the Sunak era include long-time Tory backers such as Lubov Chernukhin – wife of the former Russian oligarch Vladimir Chernukhin – who gave £136,000.
A spokesperson for the Conservatives said that “2023 fundraising has been extremely strong for the party, with the highest donations in the first quarter outside of an election year”.
They said that all parties “have a legal obligation to ensure that they only receive donations from permissible sources”.
They added: “Foreign donations are already illegal and political parties do not have, nor should they have, the same access to financial or tax records as HMRC. The government has committed to look at greater information-sharing powers between relevant agencies, and with political parties, to help both identify any irregular sources.”
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