Donors desert Starmer over Gaza, first-year failures and freebies fallout

Labour's wealthy backers are hanging on to their cash in a sign of their unhappiness at the party's performance after winning power

- Rachel Sylvester Political Editor

Labour is facing a £4m hole in its finances as wealthy donors desert the party after a string of controversies and policy decisions.

Several people who gave money in the runup to the general election have refused to renew their donations since Keir Starmer came to power. "The top donors are not interested," one senior Labour figure with knowledge of fundraising said.

Another party insider suggested there was “disappointment among many Labour donors, big and small, at the way the government has behaved” in its first year in office. “There are plenty of reasons why donor income drops off after an election but it’s rare for it to happen so precipitously as this,” the source said.

The financier Stuart Roden, the hedge fund manager Martin Taylor and the green energy industrialist Dale Vince are among the wealthy individuals who have not renewed their donations since last July, according to the latest Electoral Commission report.

Vince, owner of the renewable gas and electricity provider Ecotricity, told The Observer: “My biggest disappointment is Gaza and the lack of sanctions on Israel for the abhorrent treatment of the Palestinian people.

“It’s beyond incredible, the abuses that we're seeing taking place. We're watching it every day, the genocide there, the ethnic cleansing, the war crimes, the targeting of journalists, in tandem with the lack of real action from western governments compared to what we've done to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.”