Is changing donation laws for Reform retrospectively unfair or politically justified?

I'm sure that you did do your best to not look like a Reform supporter, @Gav1961 .

However, when you pop up as a brand new user specifically to start a thread about why Reform should be allowed to keep its huge donations regardless of the legislation already progressing through parliament and you cite a completely spurious and invalid comparison about a grooming gang leader who could not be deported in order to justify your argument, then it is inevitable that people may wonder.

My reply was hidden because we can’t even type the word for the unregulated, money laundering friendly industry these ultra wealthy men made their money in. That tells you everything we need to know about why the Representation of the People act is cracking down on this kind of untraceable money flooding into our democracy!

I completely agree - there are really good reasons why legislation to close tax loopholes etc is retrospective, so there isn’t a last minute flood of money before the rules change. There are clear constitutional guidelines (the Rees Rules) that set out how to do this fairly and the Representation of the People’s Act follows them. They gave fair warning (in March - when the Rycroft report was published). So, if these crypto billionaires hasn’t been living in this country for a year leading up to March, their donations aren’t permissible. There’s no big conspiracy. It’s straightforward. And the same rules apply to all political parties - if Reform MPs weren’t paying attention as this legislation passed through the House of Commons, more fool them.

Nigel Farage is clearly trying to spin this as a stitch up and it’s really important that people - whatever party they support - don’t let him. No one who cares about our democracy should want such an unprecedentedly large amount of big money from flooding in.

When you say it's all about optics, is that because you think that most Reform supporters lack the intelligence to engage with the facts?

I don't necessarily disagree. Personally, I think it's very likely that the Reform donors never had any intention of donating the money.

But what do you think the government should do? The bill has already gone through the Commons with a substantial majority in favour and it's now going through the Lords.

Do you think Parliament should abandon the bill retrospectively because it doesn't suit Reform donors?

Or do you think the legislation should progress as planned, but Reform should be given special dispensation to break the new law because...optics?

Or what?

What history are you suggesting that I'm missing here, exactly?

Quote "It may be that the donors and Farage are students of history... just a bit more than Mr B. Do yo really think that these men want to give away £36m each?"

Depends on what they expect back for their investment.

The Koch brothers ( I think it was them, can't remember for sure sorry), said they would donate a billion to the republicans. Because if the repubs got their proposed tax cuts through, it would save the Kochs more than that in the long term.

Bye @Gav1961 , maybe next time read the legislation before posting.

Putting the unions in the same category as individual donors, is nonsensical. The unions have a large number of members of whom they are representing. The things the unions do have the potential of improving everybody's lives not just the vested interest of a few.

@Gav1961 now that it has been explained to you, do you now understand that this is not about moving the goalposts retrospectively, which would be unfair imo. It is about the retrospective application of new legislation which was always intended to be applied retrospectively in order to prevent people from seeking to bypass the new rules while the bill progressed through parliament. As such, the earlier effective date was announced long before the large donations to Reform were mooted.

As you say that you are not a Reform supporter and you're only concerned with the fairness of the government's approach, you are hopefully now reassured that all is above board?

Have been caught out by it myself previously.

Oh I did! Because it's the subject of the post. Good to know!

Did you mention cr*pto? It automatically gets hidden.

I wonder what was in my post that triggered the auto hide! Mental.

IDK, I live in a white working class town in the North with a Reform council, and nobody in my local is happy about crypto billionaires buying "their" party.

I don't think it's wise to only listen to bots on X. It's a magic mirror. Political actors can use bots to manufacture some sentiment, sure, but don't fall for it yourself.

Yep, as @PerkingFaintly and others have already explained, the retrospective aspect of the bill was announced long before the two large Reform donations were announced. There is precedent for this kind of retrospective application of legislation and the idea is to stop people rushing to bypass the new rules while the bill progresses through parliament.

This is not Labour trying to move the goalposts in response to the donations as it might first appear.

We don't know whether the Reform donors had failed to acquaint themselves with the detail of the new legislation prior to announcing their donations. Or whether they knew all along that the donations wouldn't be allowable under the new legislation but saw an opportunity to a) divert media attention away from the criminal investigations into other Reform donations and b) create a narrative that the establishment is attempting to block Reform by changing the law retrospectively.

Its buying influence, and distorting coverage and hence also buying votes. Its wholly wrong and we’ll end up with corrupt shit for brains in government like the US.

The Tories failed to neutralise Farage when they had the chance - that idiot Cameron and his cronies, gambling on a referendum!

And now, they are still clueless. The best outcome was that Brexit may have delivered the independence and prosperity it promise. It didn’t. At the same time, our key ally, the USA, no longer really likes us much. The country doesn’t feel prosperous. We are failing to afford the measures we need to take to prevent environmental catastrophe. The workforce has become sickly and unproductive. Our young people are in crisis. Core services are at breaking point. We are saddled with national huge debt, and huge problems we have no money to tackle. It’s a proper mess.

Farage and Reform won’t fix it, just like Brexit was never going to fix it. But that’s not what people will hear. They’ll hear a simple message that the Establishment is running scared, that they will do anything to try to stop Reform which threatens the cosy position they’ve built for themselves. It’s a dangerous situation for us all.

Gav is falling for it

@TopPocketFind and as I said, I suspect they’ll succeed.

Hate, anger and jealousy are easy emotions to appeal to. And we’ve all seen that Trump can spout a pack of lies and nonsense and get away with it. Farage is probably making notes every time he flicks on his SM.

As explained the retrospective element has already been part of the Bill

Rycroft recommended it to stop donors rushing money in ahead of the legislation.
The irony

Reform and their donors were well aware and now try to play the 'against the establishment' card.

Glad you made it clear you’re not a Reform supporter…..

I think the optics of making the ban apply retrospectively will play straight into the hands of Reform.

The two major parties have both been in power - they could easily have legislated more decisively and strongly in this area. Political corruption is as old as society itself and the political elites weren’t bothered when the rules could be bent in their own favour. There has been a heck of a lot of “turning a blind eye” in the last thirty years.

We have the political elite collectively ignoring what Andrew is up to as British trade envoy allegedly hiring dozens of prostitutes whilst on business trips and selling secrets to American paedophiles - they aren’t interested until someone brings it all into daylight, but I bet a lot of them “knew”. And the former prime minister not asking the hard questions when known a sleaze ball was being considered for the job of US Ambassador.

All of this plays into the very easily spun tales of the elites being not fit for purpose: taking our money in tax and handing it out in tax breaks to their rich buddies in corporate life; not holding ANYONE accountable for the shit show that was the financial crisis; handing out contracts that allowed mates to make windfall profits from covid whilst having parties in Downing Street.

And now - when faced with a fresh challenge - they want to pass laws to make the historically acceptable receipt of funds illegal?

It doesn’t matter if it’s “just” or sensible or previously what the Tories/Labour wanted “all along”.

Reform can sell the story all too easily in a package that the electorate will eat up. Demagoguery will win, just like it did in the Brexit debate. Truth, whatever that is, doesn’t matter. You only have to look at 20th century history to see it.

A pedantic point of order re the OP's header post. Quote "So… The Labour party (temporality constituting the government) , who have received tens of millions of pounds from union member subscriptions over the years… so effectively from one body…"

You have to go back a hell of a lot of years to get the cumulative Union donations into the tens of millions.

Eg, in 2024, I get this

• Unite the Union – £362,625.00
• GMB – £290,125.00
• Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) – £213,574.42
• UNISON – £158,175.00

Source

The top 20 donors to Labour this year in the lead-up to the general election - LabourList

For sure, looking at that list there could be worries there about potential influence, from other donors. But unions are member driven and they want legislation that helps their big membership. So any influence they might be able to exert, is for the benefit of their members. As in, workers. And if you add up the number of members in the above unions, that is a lot of workers.

Not for the benefit of individual billionaire donors.

Its obviously gerrymandering. There's been a few long threads on this already.