Bloomberg donates £150k to Labour

Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves held a private meeting with Bloomberg just weeks after Labour received a £150,000 donation from the financial data company, it has emerged.

The Labour leader and shadow chancellor were in a group of senior party figures who attended a meeting in Edinburgh with Bloomberg and several other financial services companies in December.

According to the Electoral Commission’s political finance database, Bloomberg Trading Facility – the company’s platform for trading financial investment products – gave Labour a cash donation of £150,000, which was accepted on Nov 28 2023.

The investigative website OpenDemocracy reported that on Dec 8, six senior Labour figures held a roundtable meeting in Edinburgh with Bloomberg, along with investment manager Baillie Gifford, Aegon Asset Management and NatWest Group.

OpenDemocracy reported that along with Sir Keir and Ms Reeves, the meeting was attended by shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, shadow City minister Tulip Siddiq, as well as Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and Daniel Johnson MSP, the party’s business spokesman in Holyrood.

According to a now deleted LinkedIn post from the public affairs agency that helped organise the meeting, the roundtable offered “a very thorough discussion on Labour’s vision and priorities for economic growth, outlook for the financial services industry and an exclusive dive into Labour’s launch of the financial services policy review”.

Labour’s plan for financial services was published in full the following month.

‘Corporate influence’

Momentum, the Left-wing pressure group, accused Sir Keir of being too close to big business.

A spokesman for the group said: “Keir Starmer’s not wrong. Labour is changed: from a party funded by and working for the many, to one bankrolled and shaped by the few.

“This corporate influence is a recipe for bad policy and public mistrust in politics.”

But a Labour spokesman said: “It is standard practice for the Labour Party to meet with the private sector. Donations from corporate entities are declared in line with Electoral Commission rules.

“Labour is proud to engage with the financial services sector as we develop policies to grow our economy after 14 years of Tory chaos and decline.”

The donation is the largest UK political donation that Bloomberg has made since the Brexit referendum in 2016.

In 2022, Bloomberg donated £100,000 to the Conservatives.

Closer to the City

Since taking over as Labour leader in 2020, Sir Keir has striven to build a close relationship with the City in marked contrast to the perceived anti-business stance of the party under Jeremy Corbyn.

Last month, Sir Keir met with Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of Bloomberg who served as mayor of New York City between 2002 and 2013.

Sir Keir said he was “pleased to meet” with Mr Bloomberg “to discuss Labour’s partnership with business and our plans for mission-driven government”.

Mr Bloomberg has previously been highly critical of Britain’s decision to leave the EU. In 2017 he said that Brexit was the “single stupidest thing any country has ever done” apart from the election of Donald Trump as US president.

Last year, Bloomberg announced the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney – another Brexit critic who in October endorsed Ms Reeves to be the next chancellor – as chairman of its board of directors.

Bloomberg was contacted for comment.