It's your party so donate if you want to. (Political party funding)

Member Name: mikeb

Product:	Political party funding
Date:	01/02/01 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You only give to a party if you want to.

Disadvantages: Big money can buy big influence.

The funding of political parties has been a contentious issue for many years now for several reasons. The basic choice is one of whether parties should be funded by private contributions or out of the public purse. I will consider the pros and cons of public funding first followed by the relative merits of private donations.

The biggest argument against public financing of political parties is simply that the mistrust and apathy toward politicians in general means that public opinion would regard this funding as a waste of taxpayers money. This is an understandable position considering the recent and not so recent political scandals that have rocked successive governments. There is also the suspicion that public funding would innevitably lead to more waste unless very strict limits were set about how much parties could spend and what on. Presumably it would be the politicians setting the controls anyway so this would automatically lead to sceptiscism from the electorate. A further consideration would be the danger of this funding spiralling out of control with rises well above the rate of inflation year after year.

On the plus side at least this type of financing would guarantee that every party could organise and promote itself with a degree of fairness rather than it being a case of the more wealthy backers you have, the higher profile your party becomes. Even this advantage can not be endorsed without serious questions such as what criteria would be used to decide which parties would be allowed to qualify for public money. Extreme right and left wing parties would probably the first in the queue for a large handout but many people would be uneasy about their taxes funding either the BNP or the Socialist Worker party. If all political funding was from central funds it would be very difficult, not to say undemocratic, to refuse funding for these perfectly legal parties, however distasteful some people may find this. Another plus point is that
individuals and organisations would not be able to use their wealth to buy influence over party policies and ultimately government plans. There is an example of this at the moment with the boss of one of the biggest spread betting firms offering to give the Conservatives £5 million and possibly as much as £10 million but only provided they do not take a more pro European policy. Similarly the Labour party has been accused of backtracking on their plans to ban tobacco advertising on Formula 1 racing cars after a £1 million donation from Bernie Ecclestone. Both examples would not have occurred had all parties received public funding.

Private political funding by donation is, broadly speaking, the system which operates at the moment. The term private, in this case, means contributions by individuals, companies or by way of Trade Unions. Taking the Union’s donations first, most, if not all Unions now allow members to opt out of the political levy so, in effect, this is just another method of individual donation. Companies, on the other hand, tend to contribute towards the party who’s policies they believe are most suited to their business plans and ideals. A pro European and pro Euro party is much more likely to give to the Labour party at present because of their reasonably favourable stance on Britain joining the Euro, “when the economic conditions are right”. A firm with the opposite view is therefore much more likely to support the Conservatives or possibly an even more extreme party like the UK Independence party.

Individuals are likely to use the same criteria when deciding which party to donate to, although most will tend to take an overall view of the good and bad points of each party, then make a decision based on their conclusion. Occasionally a single issue, such as Europe or the environment, can be a big enough reason to persuade a person to give financial support, to help ensure that their strongly held views get a
good airing and something that they really believe in has the best chance of winning the day.

Apart from the big two, all the other parties must also try to attract funds by appealing to the electorate with something that these two can’t, or don’t, currently offer. The Liberal democrats, for example, currently offer the most pro Euro policy of the main three parties and arguably slightly more left wing policies than Labour. Other parties appeal to certain sections of society such as the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru or certain viewpoints such as the Green party, and the aforementioned BNP and Socialist Workers and are bound to attract support, and indeed money, because of this.

This brings the topic to the thorny subject of the publication of the names and amount of money that has been donated. I was able to establish the folowing by logging in to each of the big three parties official websites.

The Labour Party.

I found the following information from the donate link on Labour’s site.

The Labour party is now committed to publishing the names of every contributor who gives more than £5,000 to the party and will only accept donations from people who are eligable to vote in the UK or UK registered companies. Their official website also gives a breakdown of their income which is made up as follows:-

40% from membership and small donations.

30% from the Trade Unions.

20% from donations of £1,000 and above.

10% from events and sponsorship.



The Conservative Party

Unfortunately the Conservative site is not so forthcoming and I could find no similar breakdown of their funding, which is disappointing. From what I have seen in the media, I believe that they do not automatically declare the names of their large contributors and have no plans to change this voluntarily.



The Liberal Democrats.

As with the Conserv
atives, I could find no breakdown of funding on the official Liberal democrat site. There is however a statement signed by the leader Charles Kennedy which says that they rely on their membership for funding because, unlike the other main parties, they are not dependent on big business or the Trade Unions. This page also says that you can contribute to the party by buying products from Amazon, which earns them commission, or by getting a party Visa credit card. This is through the Co-Operative Bank who give the Lib Dems money for each new card taken out and 25 pence for every £100 spent.


Having outlined the current and possible funding of political parties I feel I should offer my own opinion on how they should be funded in the future. After considering the various merits and dissadvantages of public and private funding, I believe that the current system of private donation is probably the best way for parties receiving their financial support. Although there are some good reasons to move to central public funding, particularly to make the system fairer, I would prefer the money to come only from people who make the decision to give to a particular party.

It has been reported that Labour intends to introduce a limit on the amount that parties can spend on their General Election campaign (£15million, I believe). I think this is a good idea as it stops the parties with the most money just throwing money into advertising etc to try to get more votes.

The only major change I would like to see is that all parties should be required to name any individual or company that makes a single or combined contribution of over £50,000 in a year. This should have the effect of making political contributions more transparent and also stop some of the scandals that leak into the press where it is suggested that somebody has given to a party for personal or company gain.

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