A Tory donor who made racist comments about Diane Abbott gave another £5 million to the Tories days before the election, newly released records confirm.
And the party accepted a further £5,000 from a firm fronted by far-right agitator Laurence Fox.
Frank Hester said Ms Abbott “should be shot, and said she made him “want to hate all black women” – comments then-PM Rishi Sunak accepted were “racist and wrong”. Yet in May, months after the comments provoked widespread outrage, the Conservative Party accepted millions more in cash from Mr Hester’s firm The Phoenix Partnership.
It brings his total value of gifts to the Tories to £20 million. The Phoenix Partnership is a tech firm which has been awarded government contracts worth more than £400 million since 2016.
Responding to Mr Hester’s most recent donations, Ms Abbott told the BBC : “I am shocked that the Tories are taking money from Frank Hester, when even they admitted his remarks were racist. It demonstrates that they are not serious about opposing racism and it may also mean they are desperate for money.”
Mr Hester apologised when his remarks were first reported in the Guardian Newspaper.
A spokesperson for his firm said in June: “Frank Hester accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin. The Guardian is right when it quotes Frank saying he abhors racism, not least because he experienced it as the child of Irish immigrants in the 1970’s.
“He rang Diane Abbott twice today to try to apologise directly for the hurt he has caused her, and is deeply sorry for his remarks. He wishes to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.”
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Meanwhile, the party accepted a donation of £5,000 from Reclaim the Media Ltd, a company owned by Jeremy Hoskings, the donor behind Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party.
It was reported in June that four Tory MPs – Dame Andrea Jenkyns, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Marco Longhi and Karl McCartney – had accepted cash from the body, in exchange for backing the Reclaim party’s right-wing culture war manifesto.
So far, only Mr Clarke-Smith’s former constituency association – Bassetlaw – has declared receiving the £5,000 donation, though donations have a three-month lag before they’re published. The donation was first highlighted by the environmental campaign website DeSmog.
All four MPs lost their seats in the election.
Data released by the Electoral Commission on Thursday showed Labour received £26.1 million in donations between April and June while the Conservatives received £16.1 million. In total, political parties raised £51.6 million over the three months, more than double the amount raised over the same period in 2023, although the Electoral Commission’s Jackie Killeen said this was “not surprising” given it covered the election campaign.
Labour’s biggest donation came from hedge fund Quadrature Capital, which gave the party £4 million on May 28, just before the reporting period for the election began. Owned by investors Greg Skinner and Suneil Setiya, it was Quadrature’s first political donation but the business’s charitable arm has previously given money to environmental causes.
Other significant Labour donations included £2.5 million from Lord David Sainsbury, a long-time Labour donor, and £2.1 million from Ecotricity, the company owned by environmentalist Dale Vince. Hedge fund manager Martin Taylor gave another £2.1 million while Labour Together – which is heavily backed by Mr Taylor and businessman Sir Trevor Chinn – gave another £840,000.
Trade unions gave Labour around £5.5 million over the period, backing both central and local parties, with the biggest donors being Unison and Usdaw.