Communal businessman Gary Lubner gives £4.5m to Starmer’s Labour

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has enjoyed its best ever year for individual donations, new figures confirm, including £4.5m from communal businessman Gary Lubner.

The Electoral Commission’s latest records show that Labour received a total of £13.7m from individuals and companies last year.

Lubner, the former boss of Autoglass and a long-time supporter of the Israel charity UJIA, is revealed to have given the party at £4,527,500 over the past year in donations.

The 65-year-old, who stepped down as CEO of Autoglass owner Belron in March 2023, has previously praised Starmer for tackling antisemitism in Labour.

He also criticised the Tory Party policy on Brexit and on immigration.

“In the long list of Tory failures in the last 13 years, Brexit is top of the list,” he told the FT in a rare interview.

Lubner said he wished to give away “the vast majority” of his wealth,  to  charitable and progressive causes.
Labour Party chair Annelise Dodds confirmed the party had achieved its “best fundraising year ever”.

The previous highest amount received was in 2005 – the year Tony Blair won a third term – when £10.8m was raised.

Labour’s overall fundraising total for 2023 was £31m, including £5.9m in union donations.

Supermarket tycoon Lord Sainsbury of Turville donated £3,070,000, and his daughter Francesca Perrin became the highest-donating woman Labour has ever had, giving £1,060,000.

But the Conservatives’ fundraising outpaced Labour’s by about £17m.

The Conservatives raised a total of £48m, which included £35.8m in individual donations. The Liberal Democrats amassed £8.4m and Reform UK just £255,000, from a total of six donations.