Democracy in Europe (the UK included) faces a level of risk and compromise unprecedented in most of our lifetimes. In the UK, we first saw these issues during the Brexit referendum campaign, when opaque businesspeople like Arron Banks, with hidden Russian connections, funnelled money into the Leave campaign. In the US now, multi-billionaire Elon Musk has facilitated Donald Trump’s return to the White House using his X social media platform to manipulate public opinion. He is now rumoured to be threatening to influence British politics by funding Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Ltd Party.
On 3 December Grassroots for Europe hosted a webinar entitled “Europe’s democracy in deeper danger” to discuss the threats of foreign influence in national politics, social media manipulation, and dark money. The speakers included Peter Geoghegan, an Irish investigative journalist with a particular interest in US-UK-Russian dark money and influence, and author of the Sunday Times bestseller Democracy for Sale and the newsletter of the same name.
The main subject of Geoghegan’s talk was the recent Sunday Times report that Musk was considering making $100mn donation to Farage’s Reform Party. Musk had denied the rumours, but it now emerges that Farage and Musk have been holding talks at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida this week and, according to Farage, “the issue of money was discussed”. That this could even be possible demonstrates how vulnerable our democratic politics are to outside influence, and how urgent the need for reform is.
Transparency rules on political donations
Geoghegan explains that Britain’s transparency rules on political donations are extremely weak, making it easy for foreign multi-billionaires to play politics here. Until 2000 there were few rules concerning transparency in campaign funding. Since the Blair government’s Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, only British citizens, voters or UK based companies can fund campaigns, with thresholds above which donations must be disclosed, but there are no caps on the amounts that can be donated.
These rules were drawn up in the pre-internet age so there was, in any case, little foreign interference in other countries’ politics. Donations were made to parties or candidates, and they were made public, so we could see what was happening.
The Brexit referendum was the real turning point when it came to money in our politics. This was the first referendum in the UK in 40 years, and in a very different climate. The leave.eu campaign was bankrolled by the self-styled ‘bad boys of Brexit’, including Banks, who was later found to have had multiple meetings in the Russian embassy before the Brexit vote. The money they spent was not part of the official Leave campaign, and they found many ways to circumvent spending rules.
The Russian Interference Report was long suppressed, and was heavily redacted when it was released, but the referendum clearly demonstrated how vulnerable the UK is to outside interference. The Conservative government did almost nothing about it. In fact, it actually made the system poorer, by stripping the Electoral Commission of its independence, while focusing on non-issues like voter ID, rather than the real risks to British democracy.
Big money and politics
In the meantime, there has been a huge rise in political donations. Seven or eight years ago, just £50,000 would buy entry to the Tories’ so-called Leader’s Group. Members would get to meet the prime minister and government ministers and be able to lobby them off the record for whatever they wanted. A significant number of individuals with Russian links became members. Geoghegan reports Conservative sources telling of Russian oligarchs attending meetings and openly lobbying for Russian interests.
In recent years, the amounts of money involved have increased dramatically, and donations of £5mn are now common. Donors tend to be motivated less by ideology and more by access to government. Clearly recognising that the Conservative Party were a ‘busted flush’, during this year’s general election campaign they funnelled really significant amounts of money to Labour and very little to the Tories.
Musk, however, is clearly very ideologically driven. He is a plutocratic billionaire who has effectively tipped the electoral scales in the US. Because of our weak election laws there is a real danger he could do the same in the UK. Anybody from anywhere in the world can give money through a UK registered company, including shell companies.
So-called ‘super PACs’ in the US can spend unlimited amounts of money outside the official campaigns, but there is some legislation controlling them. There is no legislation at all in Britain on third party campaigns that sit to the side of politics. There is currently nothing to stop an Elon Musk funding something like a Reform UK super PAC, involving far more money than the parties could ever manage to raise.
Fighting back for democracy
Geoghegan calls for new rules, including a cap on political donations, and legislation to prevent shell companies making political donations. A company with no reported, taxable profits in the UK should not be able to donate here. The maximum fine for breaking electoral law in the UK is currently £20,000, small change to such big donors.
The cross-party Committee on Standards in Public Life and other committees have all made proposals that would go a long way to curb these influences. But, argues Geoghegan, politicians and parties in the UK and elsewhere seem to have accepted broken politics, poor standards and a lack of transparency, all of which feed into a lack of trust in politics and anti-establishment sentiments.
We have been too slow to address the issues of electoral reform, dark money in politics, and disinformation. It’s time for politicians in the UK to wake up to these issues. The danger has been apparent since 2016, and if we don’t mobilise, we could soon be in a much worse place.
You can watch the video of Geoghan’s talk here:
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