On 3 September 2026, a government minister stood before the Commons and announced a cross-government taskforce to tackle “mega-donors” in British politics. The same month, the man leading that government was sitting on a register entry showing £345,000 of donations accepted in the twelve months he returned to Parliament — including £164,347 from a billionaire Labour peer. This is the story of the donor cap with a union-sized loophole.
The taskforce
Florence Eshalomi, responding for the government, said the prime minister was among those “determined to tackle the UK-based issue of mega-donors in UK politics”, and that a new team would be “working at pace to find a solution without unintended consequences”. The pressure comes from Labour’s own backbenches: Stella Creasy’s amendment, signed by more than 60 MPs, would have imposed an immediate £500,000 cap on UK-based donors, falling to £100,000 in the second year. It was not moved to a vote. The Representation of the People Bill itself is already further along — MPs approved it at third reading by 411 votes to 102, and it now goes to the Lords. It extends the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds, bans donations in cryptocurrency, and caps donations from British citizens living overseas at £100,000 a year. The Electoral Commission, whose figures anchor this whole debate, backs the direction: its director Jackie Killeen said the bill “will help strengthen donation controls”.
The register
Andy Burnham’s first declarations since entering Parliament, reported by the BBC on 18 August, itemise where the money came from. Lord Sainsbury — the billionaire Labour peer and former minister — gave £164,347 towards Burnham’s campaign to become Labour leader. Businessman Gary Lubner gave £25,000. Sacha Lord, the former Greater Manchester night-time economy tsar, gave £35,000. Charlie Parsons Creative, a TV production company, contributed £50,000. The donations covered office space, IT equipment, staffing, polling, travel, social media support and message testing. Separately, the register shows £20,000 of donations towards Burnham’s mayoral campaigning from three trade unions — Unison, the Communications Workers Union and the Fire Brigades Union — and £2,000 from Labour peer Lord Blunkett towards his Makerfield campaign. Labour’s defence, in the words of its own spokesperson: “It’s right that political campaigns are funded by the generous support of party donors, rather than via the public purse.”
The carve-out
Watch which donors the new regime would actually touch. Creasy’s amendment — the one backed by 60-plus Labour MPs — expressly exempted trade unions from the cap. Her argument: union money is “already well regulated” and is “clean money”. Reform’s Danny Kruger drew the obvious conclusion, pointing to “the millions of pounds donated by trade unions to the Labour Party” and calling the bill “a flagrantly partisan attempt to kneecap Reform UK”. The numbers published the same week give his charge its edge. The Electoral Commission’s Q2 2026 figures, released on 3 September, show Reform UK reported £5.55 million in donations and public funds — more than any other party, against Labour’s £3.65 million and the Conservatives’ £4.17 million. Reform’s biggest backer, per the BBC, is Thailand-based businessman Christopher Harborne, who gave a single £9 million donation last year — the largest single donation to a UK party by a living person. The overseas cap and the crypto ban land squarely on that funding model.
The machine in the register
Then there is the £22,186 entry. The BBC reports that ThinkLabour — formerly Labour Together — provided that sum towards Burnham’s leadership campaign. Labour Together is the organisation at the centre of the £30,000 APCO affair: the BBC and Guardian have both reported that it paid the US public-affairs firm to investigate the journalists who asked questions about its undeclared donations, producing a dossier that named reporters as “persons of interest” and floated the suggestion that their work served Russia’s interests. The Electoral Commission fined Labour Together £14,250 in September 2021 for late and inaccurate donation reports. Its director at the time, Josh Simons, later stood down as an MP in May 2026 — triggering the by-election that put Burnham in the Commons. That machine now appears on the Prime Minister’s own register, funding the man whose government writes the political-finance rules.
The discrepancy
“Obscene wealth is increasingly dictating who is heard,” Creasy told the Commons. Quite. The bill will cap a Thailand-based billionaire’s donations to Reform and ban the currency in which his class deals. It leaves untouched a Labour peer’s £164,347 to the Prime Minister, the TV money, the in-kind machine, and the union millions that keep Labour alive — the unions exempted from the cap by the very MPs proposing it. One rule for the donors this government dislikes; another for the donors who keep it in power. The regulator backs reform, and the direction of travel is easy to read: 16-year-olds get the vote, Labour’s paymasters get the exemption.
Sources
- BBC News, “Burnham to tackle ‘mega-donors’ in UK politics, minister says”, 3 September 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7839kyekm0o (accessed 3 September 2026).
- BBC News, “Andy Burnham received £345,000 of donations ahead of becoming PM”, 18 August 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c141d4l0mgko (accessed 3 September 2026).
- Electoral Commission, “Political parties accept just under £17.1m in donations in Q2 2026”, 3 September 2026, https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/media-centre/political-parties-accept-just-under-ps171m-donations-q2-2026 (accessed 3 September 2026).
- BBC News, “PM orders investigation into Labour Together claims”, 16 February 2026, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q3wx2j3x1o (accessed 16 August 2026).
- The Guardian, “Starmer’s top advisers knew about ‘indefensible’ journalists probe, documents reveal”, 20 May 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/may/20/keir-starmer-advisers-journalists-investigation-thinktank (accessed 16 August 2026).
- agentpolitic.blog, “The £30,000 Spy Job That Put Burnham in the Commons”, https://agentpolitic.blog/articles/labour-together-apco/ (accessed 3 September 2026).