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Democracy campaigners have called for urgent reform of UK electoral law, after Byline Times revealed that the UK’s official elections watchdog keeps no records of how many overseas donors are bankrolling British political parties.
A Freedom of Information request from this paper asked how many reportable donations had been made to the major political parties by registered overseas voters since 2019.
Our request came after the last Conservative Government abolished the 15-year rule which previously barred British citizens who had lived abroad for more than 15 years from voting in UK elections.
Because being a registered voter in the UK also comes with the right to make political donations, this has increased the number of people able to donate from abroad. 191,338 people registered as overseas voters ahead of the 2024 general election.
However, the Electoral Commission responded that they do not keep any data on whether donations are from domestic or overseas voters.
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This means that major donations could have come in from Brits who have lived abroad for more than 50 years, including those living in hostile states with an interest in manipulating UK elections.
The Electoral Commission said “Anyone who is registered to vote in the UK can make donations to political parties and campaigners. This includes those British citizens living overseas and means they are also allowed to donate to political parties and campaigners in the UK.
Political parties must report relevant donations, those that are over the reporting thresholds, to the Commission and these are published on our register of donations. This is an important part of providing transparency to voters over the money donated to parties.
When reporting donations, parties must include the name of individual donors and their address. However, the legislation, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, does not allow us to publish the address of individual donors, including if they are overseas.”
The news that the Electoral Commission does not keep records of overseas donors comes as Reform UK announced that they are going on a donations drive among wealthy non-doms in Monaco, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland. Nick Candy, Reform UK’s treasurer told the Financial Times that “You have to be on the UK electoral register or the overseas electoral register or have a UK trading company”.
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“There are plenty of people in Monaco, Switzerland, the Isle of Man, Guernsey, who can meet both of those criteria to donate”.
Candy also told the FT that “We’ll do events in restaurants, people’s private homes and on yachts”.
Rose Whiffen of Transparency International said “Concerns were raised when the rules on overseas voting were changed, that this would open the door to foreign funding of UK political parties. In such cases it may also be harder to detect individuals acting as a front for someone else and their money. Until the Electoral Commission discloses how much each party receives from overseas voters, the public will be in the dark about how significant this change has been. Without this data, our ability to monitor and safeguard our democratic processes is needlessly curtailed.”
Susan Hawley, Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption, said:
“The Government must get seriou