Former prime minister Gordon Brown has renewed calls for a legal cap on political donations, arguing that recent multimillion-pound gifts to Reform UK should serve as a "final wake-up call" over the influence of wealthy donors on British democracy.
Writing about the state of political party financing, Brown highlighted record donations to Reform from crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, which he said were worth more than all donations to UK political parties in 2025 combined.
According to figures cited by Brown, a decade ago only around 1% of individuals and companies making political donations gave sums of roughly £1m or more. By 2024, that figure had risen to 35%, reflecting a marked shift towards very large individual donations shaping party finances.
Brown, who led Labour into the 2010 general election, recalled that his party had been significantly outspent by the Conservatives at that contest. He said Labour had inherited debts of £25m following the 2005 election and was able to spend only £8m in 2010, compared with £17m spent by the Conservatives, limiting Labour's ability to invest in emerging forms of online campaign advertising.
He said such imbalances risked becoming more pronounced in future without reform, and pointed to a 2025 Electoral Commission review, commissioned by the government, into campaign spending limits. However, Brown argued that further action was needed, specifically the introduction of a donation cap as part of the Representation of the People Bill currently before the House of Lords.
Brown noted polling suggesting that nearly half of voters said they would view a political party more favourably if it introduced a limit on political donations, with few voters objecting to the idea.
He referenced previous reviews that recommended a donations cap, including the independent Hayden Phillips review in 2007 and the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 2011, as well as support from senior political figures including former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major. Brown also noted that in December 2025 the UK and at least 59 other countries co-sponsored a United Nations resolution urging states to consider "limitations on donations… with a view to combating corruption".
Comparing the UK to other democracies, Brown said Canada caps donations to political parties at about £930 annually, France caps donations at £6,400 annually for parties and £3,900 for presidential campaigns, and Italy sets a cap of £85,600 per person or company annually.
He cited comments made by Andy Burnham shortly before becoming prime minister, in which Burnham suggested a cap "somewhere in the region of £500k". Brown also noted that in September, Labour MP Stella Creasy and 63 other MPs backed an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill proposing an annual donation cap of £500,000, reducing to £100,000 after one calendar year. The amendment was later withdrawn.
Brown said the new bill should include a power allowing the secretary of state to set a donation cap, following consultation with the Ethics and Integrity Commission, formerly the Committee on Standards in Public Life, as well as the Electoral Commission.
He said some had suggested any cap should also apply to trade union donations, but argued that collections of small individual contributions from union members who can opt out do not present the same risk to democracy as large donations from individual private donors.
On overall party spending, Brown said that outside general election years, Labour and Conservative spending had recently stood at around £60m and £55m respectively. Citing Transparency International UK, he said total spending in general election years before 2024 was about £74m for Labour and £87m for the Conservatives. In 2024, Labour's spending rose to a record £103m, while Conservative spending fell to £74m, a shift Brown said was made possible in part by the previous government's decision to raise general election spending limits.
Brown said some Labour donors he had spoken to supported a donation cap, telling him their unusually large recent donations were intended to help even out disparities between parties.
He pointed to modelling by Transparency International UK suggesting that a donation cap of £50,000 per year could significantly reduce the influence of large individual donations while still leaving parties with sufficient funds to campaign effectively, without requiring additional public funding.
Brown said reform of political funding should be part of a broader overhaul of the political system, criticising the presence of paid lobbyists in the unreformed House of Lords and describing existing transparency requirements for the lobbying industry as too weak.
