Ben Goldstone, Croydon and Sutton Socialist Party
In 2024, political parties in the UK received £100 million in donations. Unsurprisingly, big-business backers provide the main capitalist parties with large contributions. They don’t do this out of the kindness of their hearts or to better the world, at least not for us! They do this to curry favour with politicians and to sway legislation to favour their industry, profits, and shareholders. The mainstream parties then bend to their will. You just need to look at their backers to get a feel for this.
David Sainsbury, a former supermarket chairman, was Labour’s biggest donor during their 2024 general election campaign, donating £2.5 million. Notably, he was a big donor during Blair and Brown’s leaderships, stopped donating during Corbyn’s tenure, but returned with Starmer. In 2023, Michael Evans, a retired real estate magnate, donated £200,000 to Reform. Sir Michael Davis, former chief executive of Xstrata, a multinational mining company and now CEO of a commodities trading company, is one of the Tories’ largest donors, donating over £5 million in total. Sudhir Choudrie, a businessman with interests in healthcare, aviation and hospitality, has been a generous donor to the Lib Dems.
Even the Greens, purporting to be the left alternative in the UK, have wealthy backers, including Mark Constantine, co-founder and CEO of Lush, the high street cosmetics company. Like these parties, we rely on donations, but given our socialist demands and Marxist programme, we don’t have any capitalists bankrolling us. Our donations come from people like you, the working class, looking for much-needed socialist change.
The fighting fund is important as it helps us to pay for things like leaflets, placards, demo equipment, venue hire for Socialism 2025, rooms for meetings, bank fees, replacement technology, and to pay for our offices. It also funds our part in political struggle, such as helping to cover election deposits and materials, which, last year, came to £10,000.
Can you donate to help fund the fight for socialism?
We appreciate that a £5 donation from a student or someone unemployed is as much of a sacrifice as a £50 donation from a higher-paid worker, so please donate what you can today to help continue the fight for socialism.
