The Labor Party took more than £1.5 million from unions in the third quarter of 2022, the latest figures from the Electoral Commission show. It received a total of £4.7 million in donations, of which £1.62 million came from trade unions. The numbers are likely to be alarming for the Conservative Party, which trailed Labor in donations for the first time in more than a year.
Rishi Sunak’s party received a total of £2.97 million – a drop of 40 per cent from the previous quarter.
The latest donation figure is the lowest since mid-2020 for the Conservatives, who raked in £5.4 million in donations in the second economic quarter of 2022.
A Conservative spokesperson said: “The Conservative Party will only accept donations from permitted sources, namely individuals registered on the UK electoral roll or UK registered companies.
“Donations are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, openly published by them and fully compliant with the law.”
A party source told The Guardian that the figures were probably anomalous because of the leadership election taking place during that period.
At the time, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak raised more than £400,000 for their respective leadership bids – close to the £500,000 maximum threshold.
Donations to Labor are up nearly 25 percent since last quarter.
A spokesman for the party said: “Donors are coming back to Labor because they can see we are a changed party serious about getting into government and building a fairer, greener and more dynamic Britain.
Last week, the RMT announced a series of 48-hour strikes in December and January after negotiations with the industry failed to produce a better settlement.
More than 40,000 Network Rail members and 14 train operators will strike on December 13, 14, 16 and 17 and January 3, 4, 6 and 7.
The union also announced a ban on overtime from December 18 to January 2, meaning that its members will take industrial action for 4 weeks.
The RMT claimed that the government “interferes directly with our efforts to reach a settlement”.