Upon winning the the 2024 election, Labour immediately embroiled itself in multiple cronyism scandals. While the accusations have died down since then, it seems the potential cronyism has not:
Companies that donated to Labour awarded £138m in contracts.
Corporations don’t donate, they bribe. Buy access to policymakers, favourable laws, lax regulation, govt contracts.
It is political corruption. Must be criminalized. No second jobs for MPs.https://t.co/pCAGjyrA2F
— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) October 26, 2025
And this is why people call them the red Tories.
Givers and takers in Labour
The revelation comes from a new report from the Autonomy Institute:
📰NEW RESEARCH: Givers and takers – to what extent do private companies benefit when they donate to political parties?
Over recent years, 373 companies made a total of over £60 billion following their donations in public sector contracts.
+ 8 companies donated over £580,000 to… pic.twitter.com/hmFLoxJyAo
— The Autonomy Institute (@Autonomy_Inst) October 26, 2025
The Autonomy Institute looked at 373 companies which have been both:
- Givers (i.e. made declared donations).
- Takers (i.e. received contracts from a public sector contracting authority).
They refer to these companies as ‘giver and taker’ companies (G&Ts)
It turns out G&Ts have donated £47m since 2000, with successive governments awarding them £60bn in contracts since 2015. The Autonomy Institute note that:
In effect, for every £1 donated by a ‘giver and taker’ company since 2000, over £1,294 of public funds have been given out in the form of contracts to this same set of companies since in the last decade alone
This issue is very much a cross-party problem when it comes to Labour and the Tories:
• 29 of these companies donated just under £11 million to the Conservative Party, and were then awarded contracts worth £2.3 billion while the party was in government (May 2015 to July 2024).
• 8 corporations which donated over £580,000 to the Labour Party and were awarded contracts totalling over £138 million within the first year of the current Labour government (July 2024-June 2025).
This is grim given that Labour ran on a platform of not being the Tories. Additionally, Keir Starmer used to speak out against ‘cronyism’:
Stop the cronyism, stop the abuse of taxpayers’ money and stop the wasteful outsourcing of contracts.https://t.co/WOvvfRXSYr
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) May 4, 2021
Sleaze, cronyism, corruption.
Seeing Conservative members line up like drones to vote to scrap the body that polices their behaviour was utterly depressing.https://t.co/vYtpszeouD
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) November 5, 2021
The above post is the last time Starmer tweeted about ‘cronyism’. It’s almost as if he began to foment cronyism ambitions of his own.
Lord Ali was buying Keir Starmer thousands of pounds worth of ‘gifts’. @adilray was spot on in September last year when he called it cash for access. That’s exactly what it is when super rich multi millionaires buy stuff for politicians. Its corruption plain and simple. https://t.co/sUIJmr3U9n pic.twitter.com/YA4qT72EnL
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) September 14, 2025
Ah, remember Starmer said there would be no cronyism?
The Guardian reports, Companies that recently donated to Labour were awarded contracts worth almost £138 MILLION during the party’s first year in power.
This is stakeholder capitalism in action 💣 pic.twitter.com/f72skKu1mx
— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) October 26, 2025
Solutions
As reported by the Guardian, Dr Susan Hawley (executive director of Spotlight on Corruption) said the following:
There is nothing more damaging to public trust than the perception that those with privileged access to those in power get privileged access to taxpayer-funded contracts.
These findings show a systemic problem with the UK’s absurdly weak handling of conflicts of interest. It must lead to systemic solutions which include screening out political donors and their companies from the procurement process, and real consideration of a ban on company directors or their companies that receive public contracts from making political donations.
The Autonomy Institute has made policy recommendations on what should happen next, including:
• Public contracts should not be awarded to companies that have made political donations.
• All political donations above £500 should be logged through real-time disclosures, with full details available for public scrutiny.
• Company numbers of donor entities must be published alongside other donation details.
• Reinstate reporting requirements for defence and spending contracts.
Given that Labour have continued to engage in Tory-style sleaze, it’s unlikely they’ll implement any of the above. As we’ve reported, however, the party is increasingly sick of Starmer, which means the gravy train might have to make an unexpected stop.
While we doubt Labour can be anything other than Tory-lite at this point, they will at least have to make some changes to move past the Starmer disaster, and policies like the above are ripe for the taking.
Featured image via Number 10
