Len McCluskey calls on Long-Bailey rivals to reveal funding sources

Unite the Union general secretary Len McCluskey has called on Rebecca Long-Bailey’s leadership rivals – Lisa Nandy and Keir Starmer – to reveal their campaign funding sources and boost “transparency”.

The appeal for candidates to disclose their financial backers comes after Long-Bailey published a donor list on her Labour leadership campaign website. It showed Unite and Momentum to be her biggest funders.

Speaking at the Oxford Union on Wednesday evening, McCluskey said: “This is the week where Labour members can start casting their votes for the next leader so it is vital that members have all the information they need to inform this vital decision.

“Trust in politics and politicians is essential, which is why it is really important that all the leadership candidates declare where their campaign money comes from. In the Labour Party, there should be no secret financiers sitting in the shadows.

“So I appeal to the other candidates, follow Rebecca’s lead – publish your donor lists too. It cannot be that we can find out more easily about the millionaires and billionaires happy to open their wallets for Boris Johnson and his Tory party at their black tie ball but we are in the dark about who is funding two possible Labour leader candidates.

“I hope Lisa and Keir will act on this so that Labour really can be the party of transparency and trust.”

Starmer – whose campaign sent out a mailshot to all party members estimated to cost between £180,000 and £280,000 – was asked about the possibility of voluntary disclosure of funding sources on ITV’s Peston.

The frontrunner said: “There are very strict rules with the Electoral Commission and the parliamentary rules require you to register all your funding and then to publish it. And that’s what we’ve been doing.

“My first tranche went up on the parliamentary website a few weeks ago. The next tranche, we’ve given it to the parliamentary authorities. I’ve got a compliance officer, the parliamentary authorities are looking at it. They check it’s all in order.

“And I think it’s going up as soon as it’s given the green light, which will probably be on Monday.” He concluded that the demands to reveal funders amounted to “a non-story”.

It is understood that Lisa Nandy’s leadership campaign is running on a much smaller budget than those of her two rivals. Her parliamentary website page suggests that she has relied upon individual donors rather than large organisations.

A spokeswoman for Nandy’s campaign has said that all of her donations are published on the House of Commons website. A source on Starmer’s campaign has said he is being supported through union funding, online donations and individual contributions, which will appear on the register of interests.