{"id":1207,"date":"2018-01-05T16:16:14","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T16:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electoral-reform.org.uk\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2018-01-05T16:16:15","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T16:16:15","slug":"political-parties-are-too-reliant-on-big-donors-and-it-has-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/political-parties-are-too-reliant-on-big-donors-and-it-has-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Political parties are too reliant on big donors – and it has to change"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Huge swathes of the public believe big\u00a0donors hold too much political\u00a0sway\u00a0\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and\u00a0yet again it has been revealed just how reliant parties are on the cash of very few.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mirror today published research<\/i><\/a>\u00a0findings showing that\u00a039% of all cash donations to the Conservative Party declared so far this year are from 64 individuals and their\u00a0businesses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 64 in question\u00a0are all members of\u00a0an exclusive donor club with a \u00a350,000 annual membership fee.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This grants them access to senior party figures via swanky dinner events. Ministers who have attended in the first half of this year include Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Philip Hammond and Jeremy Wright.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are plain risks for\u00a0democracy of such access to politicians –\u00a0echoed earlier this week following\u00a0revelations about\u00a0continued dining privileges for retired peers<\/a>. It appears there is more than one Private Members’ Club in Westminster of which membership comes with\u00a0the\u00a0potential of exerting great\u00a0influence.<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0concern\u00a0about these 64 donors afforded time with ministers is that there is\u00a0a huge gender imbalance. Just two of the elite group are women.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By no means is this a problem confined to the Conservative party. A\u00a0breakdown of donations to the Labour Party in 2016<\/a>, the last full year for which data is\u00a0available, revealed nearly 46%\u00a0of its cash gifts were made by Trade Unions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Parties should be providing a\u00a0vehicle for the views of its supporters free from\u00a0financial\u00a0influence.<\/p>\n

What reason do people have to join political parties when they see those with the deepest pockets having greater influence on policy\u00a0decisions?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steps need to be taken to clean up party funding. A cap on donations would be a start.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To ensure a more\u00a0democratic system, it is likely that public funding would have to feature more heavily than it currently does.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0idea of funding\u00a0political\u00a0parties may irk much of the public, but it is important to remember that for all\u00a0their\u00a0failings they play a key role in our\u00a0democracy, not least in providing a platform for the views of the public.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, public funds account for less than 3% of\u00a0Labour’s\u00a0total donations and less than 0.5% of the Conservatives.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Undoubtedly\u00a0there are hurdles to be overcome in\u00a0effectively reforming party funding – but the\u00a0democratic need to do so is a pressing as ever.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the Electoral Reform Society’s report,\u00a0Deal or No Deal<\/i><\/a>.\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Huge swathes of the public believe big\u00a0donors hold too much political\u00a0sway\u00a0\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and\u00a0yet again it has been revealed just how reliant parties are on the cash of very few.\u00a0 The Mirror today published research\u00a0findings showing that\u00a039% of all cash donations to the Conservative Party declared so far this year are from 64 individuals and their\u00a0businesses.\u00a0 The 64 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[233,232,231],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-money-in-politics","tag-big-donors","tag-money-in-politics","tag-party-funding","feature-category-comment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}