Leadership candidate said details of donors ‘should’ be available by Monday, but so far no new information
Two leading Labour MPs have called on leadership candidate Keir Starmer to come clean with details of his campaign donors, after an updated parliamentary report Starmer said ‘should’ list them failed to materialise.
Starmer told ITV’s Robert Peston last week that an updated list of donors to his leadership campaign ‘should’ be available by today. It was the second time he had failed to respond directly to a request to reveal them:
Starmer is under no obligation to wait for Parliament to report his donors – rivals Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy have already published lists of their donors giving over £1,500 and critics have said Starmer’s delay means that more people will be voting for him in ignorance of who is supporting him.
The non-appearance of the parliamentary register has prompted two leading MPs to call for full disclosure.
Front-bencher Jon Trickett told the SKWAWKBOX:
It’s time that we put an end to secrecy in political donations. People want to know what lies behind who they are being asked to vote for. This applies to both general elections and inner party elections.
I think we need real time declarations of donations. The moment you take a private sum as a candidate, it ought to be declared. Maybe everything over a few hundred pounds. There’s really no excuse for delays.
Party chair Ian Lavery added:
I’ve been very clear and my opinion hasn’t in any way changed. Transparency within our party is of the utmost importance. MPs standing for leadership positions should see it as an obligation and not an impediment to publish a timely and clear detailed list of ALL donations from ALL sources let’s get on with this.
Keir Starmer’s campaign was asked to comment on whether their candidate would now publish details of his donors. No response had been received by the time of publication and no updates appear to have been published on his campaign website or Twitter feed.
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