{"id":8925,"date":"2026-01-13T14:52:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T14:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/?p=8925"},"modified":"2026-01-14T16:20:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T16:20:28","slug":"british-public-strongly-back-caps-on-donations-to-political-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/british-public-strongly-back-caps-on-donations-to-political-parties\/","title":{"rendered":"British public strongly back caps on donations to political parties"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Polling published in the last few weeks\u00a0reveals\u00a0that the British public\u00a0are worried about the influence of money in politics, with a majority wanting\u00a0to see the introduction of caps on donations to political parties.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A\u00a0Survation\u00a0poll,\u00a0conducted between 9-11 December 2025,\u00a0on behalf of 38 Degrees, found that\u00a0<\/span>57%\u00a0of people support\u00a0the introduction of a cap on the amount of money individuals or companies can donate to parties<\/span><\/a>, while just 7% were against.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Separate polling by YouGov\u00a0(27-29 December 2025), shows that just\u00a0<\/span>13% of people think that individuals should be allowed to give as much as they wish to political parties<\/span><\/a>. Similarly, 9% think business should be allowed to give as much as they wish.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0case for\u00a0a donation\u00a0cap\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

We strongly support the introduction of\u00a0<\/span>a cap on financial donations to political parties<\/span><\/a>. At present a single donor can give an unlimited amount of money to a party at any time. There is nothing to stop a multi-billionaire donating \u00a3100 million (or more) to a political party. It should not be possible for anyone to buy that much influence in our democracy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we\u00a0highlighted recently,\u00a0<\/span>a\u00a0donation\u00a0cap could be set\u00a0at\u00a0different levels<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and there is\u00a0an option\u00a0to set it at a\u00a0relatively\u00a0high\u00a0level\u00a0initially\u00a0with the intention that this is reduced\u00a0at a later date. The most important thing, however, is that the principle of a cap is\u00a0established. This is a normal part of the democratic landscape in many\u00a0democratic countries.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The government published\u00a0<\/span>a\u00a0policy paper on democracy and elections<\/span><\/a>, in July 2025.\u00a0This committed the government to bringing forward an Elections Bill, with the\u00a0widely held\u00a0expectation that this will be laid before parliament in the next few months.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The policy paper included many welcome proposals to strengthen the rules around donations to political parties. These\u00a0include\u00a0making it impossible for\u00a0\u2018shell companies\u2019 who do not\u00a0carry out genuine commercial activity in the UK, to donate to political parties\u00a0and\u00a0tightening rules around donations from\u00a0untransparent\u00a0unincorporated associations.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The upcoming Elections Bill should include a cap on donations<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Something that did not make it into the policy paper, however, was any proposal to put a limit on the amount that any one individual or\u00a0business\u00a0can donate\u00a0to political parties.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The forthcoming Elections Bill is the perfect opportunity for the government to introduce such a measure. That is why we are joining with organisations such as Transparency International and Spotlight on Corruption to urge the government to include a cap on donations to political parties in their legislation. If they do so they will be introducing a common sense policy that will help protect the fabric of our democracy in the years ahead, and as we have seen above, will be going with the grain of public opinion on this issue.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you agree? Add your name to our call.<\/h3>\n

Click here to demand the government put donation caps in their upcoming Elections Bill ><\/a> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polling published in the last few weeks\u00a0reveals\u00a0that the British public\u00a0are worried about the influence of money in politics, with a majority wanting\u00a0to see the introduction of caps on donations to political parties.\u00a0\u00a0 A\u00a0Survation\u00a0poll,\u00a0conducted between 9-11 December 2025,\u00a0on behalf of 38 Degrees, found that\u00a057%\u00a0of people support\u00a0the introduction of a cap on the amount of money individuals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":8926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,755],"tags":[776,232],"class_list":["post-8925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-money-in-politics","category-representation-of-the-people-bill","tag-donation-cap","tag-money-in-politics","feature-category-comment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8925","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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}