Keir Starmer Plans to Crack Down on Political Interference by Foreign Billionaire Donors

Five days after Elon Musk’s infamous Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Dr Jeremy Stone, a software engineering consultant, launched a petition to “remove loopholes that allow wealthy foreign individuals to make donations into UK political parties (e.g. by funnelling through UK registered companies), cap all donations to a reasonable amount and review limits on the fines that can be levied for breaking the rules”. Stone posted the petition on X (formerly Twitter) below an AI generated image of Elon Musk performing the salute over a ballot box with dollars stuffed inside. “Is this what we want?” Stone wrote in his posts about the petition. The answer, at least for the 142, 076 people who signed, was no. 

The petition quickly cleared the 100,000 signature threshold needed to force a parliamentary debate as Elon Musk threatened to intervene in UK politics with the promise (as yet unrealised) of a $100,000,000 donation to Reform UK. The debate took place in parliament on Tuesday between MPs for Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the DUP.

Here’s what we learnt from the debate. 

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Keir Starmer’s Government plans to tighten rules on foreign donors

Democracy Minister Rushanara Ali told MPs “although it is clear that foreign donations to political parties and other campaigners are illegal, the Government recognise the continued risk posed by actors who seek to interfere in our democratic process. The current rules no longer match the sophistication and perseverance of those who wish to undermine our laws, and that threat must be addressed through stronger safeguards”. 

She added that, “We are considering a series of new measures that would achieve that, such as enhanced checks by recipients of donations and tighter controls on donors, including more restrictions around company donations”. 

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But they will leave British big money donors alone

Some MPs raised concerns in the debate about the influence of big money donors generally, whether they are foreign or not. Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill said: “We all know the saying, “Money is power,” and I would hope that none of us are naive enough to think that this does not apply to the UK.

“If we want to create a democratic system where everyone’s vote has equal value, we need strong protections in place to prevent the very richest individuals in our society from warping our democracy”. 

Ribeiro-Addy also described a proposal from the IPPR thinktank to cap individual and corporate donations to political parties at £100,000 a year as a “modest starting point”. 

Ali told MPs that there would be no action taken to cap donations from British citizens or corporations.

She said, “The Government do not plan to introduce such restrictions, as we are rightly focused on safeguards that protect against the threat of foreign interference”

She added, “I mentioned at the start that we must protect what is hard won. It is vital that those who play a crucial role in our democracy can fundraise effectively and communicate their ideas with the electorate. Those who choose to participate in electoral campaigns must follow the strict accounting and transparency rules that apply to political donations, and the strict spending limits for election campaigns.”

Musk remains on MP’s minds

Rumours that Musk planned to make a large donation to Nigel Farage’s party began circulating a few weeks after the X owner met the Reform UK leader in person. However, the two men have since fallen out, with Musk backing Rupert Lowe in the Reform UK split and calling for Farage to be removed as leader. Nevertheless, the possibility that the South African billionaire could try and interfere in the UK’s democracy through large donations loomed over the debate. 

Irene Campbell who led the debate said “there are ways that [Musk] could get around the rules […] For example, a multinational corporation owned by a foreign national could legally donate to UK political parties. Additionally, unincorporated associations, which are permissible donors, do not have to conduct permissibility checks on their own donors, leading to a lack of transparency in their donations.”

Tom Hayes, Labour MP for Bournemouth East, warned that “this world moment involves a particular intersection between the concentration of wealth that can sway elections in the hands of a small number of people who happen to be tech billionaires, and the fact that these wealthy men are foreigners to our country. If they were to get engaged in our politics under the current system, they could sway our elections through donations, as well as through their use of technology and communication channels”. 

Hayes namechecked Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates as individuals whose influence could be potentially cause for concern. 

Bell Ribeiro-Addy took an apparent swipe at the billionaire, saying “It goes without saying that people like the owner of the social media website that I will only ever call Twitter, who is not even registered to vote in the UK, does not own companies incorporated in the UK and invariably avoids paying his full share of tax in the UK, should not be free to throw money at our politics, but here we are”. 

Russia, China and Iran worry MPs, but no one mentioned Israel or Saudi Arabia

Russia was mentioned 20 times during the debate, with several MPs bringing up the 2020 report from Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee which found that “Several members of the Russian elite who are closely linked to Putin are identified as being involved with charitable and/or political organisations in the UK, having donated to political parties”.

Liberal Democrat MP for Tewksbury Cameron Thomas called for the release of the records of the Westminster Russia Forum, a pro-Russia lobby group which met with several Conservative MPs. He also called for the “full unredacted release of the Russia report”, the 2020 report which found that the Conservative government had failed to investigate Russian influence in UK politics. 

MPs also criticised the potential for Chinese and Iranian influence in UK politics with Conservative MP David Simmons referring to an incident in 2023 when it was revealed that members of the Labour party had taken more than £700,000 from Christine Lee who MI5 claimed had been “engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party,”. 

However, no mention was made of the extensive funding that British MPs receive in donations and free trips from pro-Israel and Saudi Arabian lobby groups. The 2024 Transparency International report to which many MPs referred during the debate, stated that the luxury hospitality that MPs receive from governments such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Azerbaijan as “ a reputational and security risk to our democracy”.