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Dear John,

Hear that? That’s the UK’s political money machine sputtering into action. With elections just around the corner and everything to play for, oligarchs and billionaires in Britain and elsewhere are opening up their chequebooks and calling up their bankers. Hardly political philanthropists, these are investors who will be expecting a substantial return.

On Tuesday, Margaret Hodge MP highlighted ([link removed]) one example that shows how deep the money goes. In 2017, Conservative party headquarters advised one Mohamed Amersi – not an eligible donor in the UK – to give £200,000 to the party through his partner, Nadia, instead. The donation was made, and to this day, it’s unclear whose account the funds were transferred from (meaning the donation could still very well be illicit). Amersi would go on to enjoy unfettered access to ministers of state, before being "mired in an international corruption scandal ([link removed]) ” and accused of using legal threats to silence his critics. He’s recently offered up his cash to the Labour party, which declined the donations (but permitted individual MPs to accept them).

The influx of all of this money into our political system is creating an increasingly secretive and opaque system of government, more and more detached from regular people. Just this month, Scottish Labour refused to admit the press ([link removed]) to a high-level lobbying event with business leaders and front-bench MPs. No agenda was published, nor was a full list of attendees.

Dark money and opaque politics is eating away at British democracy. Slowly but surely, our voices are being drowned out by those who can simply pay their way to privileged access. Instead of tightening the rules, recent governments have loosened them, allowing more and more cash to slip by and encouraging more and more spending come election time.

In our Functional Democracy Goals ([link removed]) report published in September, recommendations #7 and #8 call for stricter limits on overall party spending and a robust new transparency framework for all political donations.

Open Britain stands firm in its mission to make those recommendations real. We MUST challenge the pernicious influence of dark money and champion a democracy where every voice matters. And, as a movement hundreds of thousands strong, we will. Thank you for playing YOUR part.

All the best,

The Open Britain Team
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