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Courtesy of the Times.
Donors plan to desert other political parties and back the Independent Group days after it was created. The band of 11 MPs have already raised tens of thousands of pounds from members of the public, using an online crowdfunder, after forming the group on Monday. In an interview with The Times Chuka Umunna, the MP for Streatham and a former shadow business secretary, said that the group would accept funding from wealthy individuals, adding: “We are not against successful people.”
The group has said that it wants to accept only donations that would meet the legal requirements of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Because it has not yet become a political party it is not obliged to do so. Money from individuals would be declared if accepted, Mr Umunna said. Under the law, political parties have to register donations in excess of £7,500. The Independent Group has said that it will publish accounts every three months, detailing all donations above £500. Mr Umunna said he hoped that the Independent Group would evolve into a fully fledged political party by the end of the year.
Charlie Mullins, the millionaire behind Pimlico Plumbers, the London company he founded in 1979, switched allegiance from the Tories and donated £25,000 to the Liberal Democrats last year as part of his opposition to Brexit. He also had a stall at the party’s conference for his campaign to stop Brexit. He was now intending to abandon the Lib Dems and support the Independent Group, he told The Times, but declined to say how much he was willing to hand over to Mr Umunna and his colleagues. Mr Mullins said that supporting the new group was the best way to achieve another Brexit referendum and he hoped that they could attract more potential defectors, including Justine Greening, the former education secretary. “I think the Independent Group are much like the Liberal Democrats in supporting another referendum. But I feel they could be more successful than the Lib Dems. And I’m going to put my money where the best chance of success is,” he said. “I believe that any money I put in to the Independent Group will be money well spent because I think Theresa May is destroying the economy. This is about our children and grandchildren and the future of this country.”
Mr Mullins added that he was not the only disgruntled former Conservative donor worried about the impact that Brexit would have on business and said he was “sure that others will be donating”. Mr Umunna told The Times: “We’ve already raised tens of thousands of pounds from several thousand small donors, which is extraordinary. Our website crashed, because at one point 700,000 people were trying to visit it at the same time.” Wealthy individuals had also offered large donations, he said.
Mr Umunna’s register of interests shows that he received a £10,000 donation from Farr Vintners, a fine wine wholesaler, at the end of January. A spokesman for the company said that the money was unrelated to the Independent Group and that it had not known that Mr Umunna was about to resign from Labour. The one-off donation was not party political and was designed to pay for a researcher in Mr Umunna’s office to help to campaign against Brexit, he added. A poll commissioned by the think tank Progressive Centre UK, at which Mr Umunna is chairman of the advisory board, found that 41 per cent of those asked said they might vote for a new party. Opinium Research polled 2,001 adults, between February 15 and 18. A spokesman for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which gave the Lib Dems £301,740 in June, said its board had not discussed the Independent Group.
