Labor will receive £5m in financial support from the former boss of an auto glass repair company to fight the next general election, a sign that Britain’s main opposition has succeeded in attracting new donors. .
Gary Lubner, who made hundreds of millions of pounds as a manager of Autoglass, told the Financial Times he wants to help Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer to keep his party in power for a ‘long term’. rice field.
Electoral Commission figures to be released on Thursday show South African-born Lubner donated £500,000 to the Labor Party in the first quarter of 2023, adding to his previous £200,000 contribution. .
Lubner said he made “significantly more” funding in the second quarter of 2023, continuing its fiscal trajectory to help Labor build its “capacity and potential” by next year’s general election. said to do.
“This is the beginning,” he said. “I’m going to contribute more towards the general election.”
Those with knowledge of his intentions expect his total donations before the election to exceed £5 million, and Lubner declined to give an exact figure, but based on the size of his donations to date. I accepted that it was a valid conclusion.
That would make him one of Labor’s biggest individual donors in parliament. His longtime supporter, Sir David Sainsbury, former chairman of the eponymous supermarket group, recently donated £2m to the party.
Lubner’s backing will give Sturmer the financial power to match Egypt-born billionaire Mohamed Mansour’s recent £5 million donation to the ruling Conservative Party, giving him the support of the Conservative Party over the past two decades. largest donation in
Sturmer’s supporters say the party will see a significant increase in personal donations, in addition to its traditional sources of income from trade unions, so in the first half of 2023 alone, the party will spend £6 million raised in donations last year. It is expected that it will be exceeded.
Mr. Lubner said he recognizes that his donation will draw attention. This was an unprecedented experience for the 64-year-old, who has retired from the limelight throughout his career.
Speaking at his office in London’s West End, Mr Lubner said he wanted to donate “most” of his wealth primarily to charity, but also to help Labor return to power.
“I can only sleep in one bed,” he said, adding that his three children supported his decision. “My children are not interested. I don’t think it’s right to inherit such wealth.”
In 2000, Mr. Lubner became CEO of Bellron, a vehicle glass repair and replacement company, continuing a business that had its origins in his grandfather’s glass company in South Africa. But he said he “contributed very little” to his subsequent success.
Mr. Lubner benefited from what he calls a “highly leveraged incentive scheme” that left him very wealthy when he left Bellon in March.
He said he politicized it after being drafted into the police force in South Africa, calling apartheid “a brutal and brutal system that I have seen firsthand”.
His grandparents were Jewish refugees from one of the Russian pogroms of the early 20th century, and his grandmother witnessed his parents being shot in front of him. He was appalled when anti-Semitism surfaced in the Labor Party under Jeremy Corbyn.
“I was terrified of what was going on,” he said. His youngest son, a Labor student activist, was “abused, exposed and attacked” during this time. Referring to anti-Semites within the Labor Party, he added: “To his credit, Sturmer eliminated them. It was just cancer for the party.”
Lubner said he wanted his own money to improve the party’s ability to stay in power. She also gives cash to affiliated think tanks and groups working to get more female Labor MPs into parliament.
Issues such as the government’s immigration strategy and Brexit have made him determined to help fund Labor, he said.
“In a long list of Conservative failures over the past 13 years, Brexit is at the top of the list,” he said. “This is a disaster. Nothing good. None.”
Mr Lubner argues that in an ideal world both political endowments and the House of Lords would be abolished, not funding the Labor Party to gain titles.
Asked if there was a skeleton in the cupboard, Mr Lubner said he was rooting for West Ham.
