The Labour Party has offered corporate bosses the “unique opportunity to become a commercial partner at our business policy round-table over breakfast” for up to £30,000 – in another cash-for-access scandal.
For £15,000, corporations would give a keynote speech, have photographs with business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and have a dedicated Labour Party staffer to make introductions. And for £30,000, the corporation could also decide who else would attend the breakfast.
Labour wheeled out Ed Miliband to defend the offer, who said: “Don’t do it again, is my message. The answer is – whether it is me or Jonathan Reynolds – it is not about paying to have access. That is not what we are about, no”.
Labour: no such thing as a free breakfast
But cash for access scandals in plain sight go beyond this. At both the Labour and Conservative conferences, business executives could pay £3,000 for “networking opportunities” with ministers or shadow ministers. Big banks and oil companies were among the lobbyists and executives that attended Labour’s largest ever business event at its conference.
Labour also held a private meeting with the Bloomberg group on 8 December 2023. This was just weeks after the media and finance corporation donated £150,000 to the party.
Keir Starmer, the now-chancellor Rachel Reeves, no- business secretary Reynolds, and other senior party figures attended the meeting, which Labour did not deny was held with respect to the donation.
At the discussion, Labour offered Bloomberg “an exclusive dive” into its key financial services policy document. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg owns the company, and on top of its media section, it provides computing services for global finance companies to access investment data.
Two Labour sources told openDemocracy that the meeting was “highly unusual” and “suspicious” because so many from the highest level of the party attended.
Simon Youel of Positive Money said:
Rachel Reeves herself has acknowledged New Labour’s errors in relying on an under-regulated financial sector to generate wealth, yet the party seems set on repeating the mistake of letting the City of London dictate policy-making, which inevitably the public will again be left paying the price for.
Buying influence through personal donations
Scores of Labour ministers including Starmer himself have faced criticism for corporations buying influence through donations that MPs can use for personal enjoyment, like event tickets and clothes.
Starmer has essentially admitted there are issues with this through saying he will pay back some of the donations. But still, he is keeping most of them.
The out of touch approach was best summed up when health secretary Wes Streeting said:
I’m really proud of people who want to contribute…their money to our politics. It is a noble pursuit, just like giving to charity.
This shows how seriously Streeting takes government, because he must be taking the mick. MPs are on £91,346 and legislate the laws of the country. Most people cannot even imagine earning that much. These are bribes, not charitable donations.
YouTube, which Google owns, gave business secretary Reynolds tickets to Glastonbury festival in 2023. The hospitality package for him and his wife is estimated to have cost £3,377. The very next day after the festival Labour ditched plans to increase the digital services tax from 2% to 10%.
In another laughable if it wasn’t from the government take, Labour education secretary Bridget Phillipson said of free Taylor Swift tickets:
It was a hard one to turn down… one of my children was keen to go
As one X user pointed out:
That’s the point of a bribe, to be enticing. Your job is to not take it.
Featured image via Sky News – YouTube
