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Labour in ‘cash for access’ scandal over meetings with £150k donor

Original article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have engaged heavily with the financial services industry
 | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Labour top brass including Keir Starmer gave Bloomberg ‘exclusive’ look at party’s financial plan at private meeting

Labour leader Keir Starmer, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, and four other senior party figures met with a major media and financial information conglomerate weeks after it donated £150,000 to the party – sparking concerns of “cash for access” from transparency campaigners.

The meeting between Labour and the Bloomberg group, which took place in Edinburgh on 8 December last year, was described as “suspicious” and “highly unusual” by two Labour sources.

The private roundtable event came shortly after the US business conglomerate, majority owned by American businessman and politician Michael Bloomberg, made its first donation to Labour in seven years. The donation was made by a Bloomberg subsidiary called Bloomberg Trading Facility Limited.

The party used the meeting to offer Bloomberg and others in attendance “an exclusive dive” into its flagship financial services policy document, which was published the following month, according to a social media post by a person involved in coordinating the event.

Labour did not deny that the meeting was connected to the donation, with a spokesperson telling openDemocracy: “It is standard practice for the Labour Party to meet with the private sector.” The party did not reply to openDemocracy’s query about whether Bloomberg was given exclusive access to the flagship financial services policy document. Bloomberg declined to comment for this story.

The Edinburgh event was facilitated by Sovereign Strategy, a lobbying firm that has represented Bloomberg for almost two decades, which promises to get its clients’ “messages heard at the highest levels of government”, according to the firm’s website.

Lobbyists often hold such events to introduce their clients to Labour frontbenchers so they can try to shape the party’s policy on issues relevant to their businesses.

But two Labour sources, who spoke to openDemocracy on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation for appearing critical of the party’s leadership, said the Edinburgh meeting was “highly unusual” and “suspicious” due to the sheer number of senior politicians present.

Starmer and Reeves were joined at the event 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 spokesperson in Holyrood.

Other comparable meetings are typically attended by only one or two shadow ministers. openDemocracy has analysed more than 200 meetings attended by Labour frontbenchers in the past year based on publicly available data and triangulation through multiple sources, and found the Edinburgh meeting involved far more senior figures than any other.

The meeting took place less than two weeks after Bloomberg Trading Facility Ltd, a subsidiary of Bloomberg LP, donated £150,000 to Labour – with the conglomerate becoming one of the party’s top corporate donors for all of 2023 in a single day, according to Electoral Commission records.

A Bloomberg company last made a cash donation to the Labour Party in late 2016, when it gave the party £60,000. The firm has since handed the Conservatives £260,000, most recently donating £100,000 in June 2022.

Simon Youel, the head of policy and advocacy at not-for-profit advocacy group Positive Money, told openDemocracy that voters should be worried by the timing of the meeting – which took place as Labour finalised a key document to set out its policy on the financial services sector.

“What is most concerning is that weeks after this meeting, Labour published a plan for financial services that reads like a love letter to Big Finance, with much in there that could have been written by the industry itself,” Youel said.

Labour spent months drafting its financial services report, bringing in a staffer from City consultancy Oliver Wyman to put it together. After its publication in January, Reeves and Siddiq threw a lavish, no-press-allowed reception in the City of London’s famed Guildhall to thank the industry for its contributions.

In a since-deleted LinkedIn post, a Sovereign Strategy staffer said the roundtable discussion had a focus on the “outlook for the financial services industry and an exclusive dive into Labour’s launch of the financial services review”.

Youel added: “Rachel Reeves herself has acknowledged New Labour’s errors in relying on an under-regulated financial sector to generate wealth, yet the party seems set on repeating the mistake of letting the City of London dictate policy-making, which inevitably the public will again be left paying the price for.”

In a video from the event, Starmer can be heard telling the attendees: “What you now see is a Labour Party that is fundamentally different to the Labour Party that fought the last general election. Unrecognisably different. And very obviously pro-business.”

The video, which Labour released on the day of the meeting, made no reference to who was at the event or what was discussed.

Bloomberg holds a unique position within the financial sector, providing hardware, software, data and advisory services to all manner of financial services institutions.

Its computer systems, Bloomberg Terminals, are used by banks, institutional investors and financial analysts all over the world to access high-level investment data and place financial transactions. The company also has a news division and TV channel that employ over 2700 journalists in 120 countries, according to its website. Its eponymous billionaire founder and majority owner, Michael Bloomberg, is a fixture in US politics and one of the richest people in the world. He was mayor of New York City for 12 years, before running for President as recently as 2020.

Youel said that access to frontbench politicians could give Bloomberg a “value-add” for its clients, raising “serious concerns around cash for access in our democracy”.

The roundtable was also attended by investment manager Baillie Gifford, Aegon Asset Management and NatWest Group. For several months in 2022, NatWest provided a member of staff to Jonathan Reynolds’ office, valued at £13,800.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “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.”

Scottish Labour refused to provide any additional details about the meeting, with a spokesperson saying only that the party “meets with a range of stakeholders to discuss a range of issues”.

They added: “Boosting economic growth is at the heart of our plans to deliver a fairer and more prosperous Scotland, and we are working in partnership with both businesses and trade unions to deliver that.”

Partnership with business
Lobbyist Sovereign Strategy has in recent months strengthened its links to the Labour Party, which is widely expected to win this year’s general election.

Keir Starmer is featured in a brochure published by the lobbying firm in September 2022. The Labour leader is pictured posing for a photo alongside Sovereign chairman Alan Donnelly, a former Labour MEP, in front of a display bearing Bloomberg’s branding.

The brochure goes on to quote a senior Bloomberg executive as saying that the firm has “expanded our influence with key decision-makers”.

Sovereign Strategy also donated £5,000 to deputy leader Angela Rayner “for campaigning activities” last month, according to the register of members’ financial interests. Just over a week after the donation from Sovereign to Rayner, Starmer met with Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire co-founder of Bloomberg, to discuss “Labour’s partnership with business”, .

This donation appears to be a breach of the Public Affairs Code set out by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), a trade body representing UK lobbyists including Sovereign Strategy. A breach of the code could result in a member being reprimanded or their membership of the organisation being suspended.

Section 8 of the code – a set of rules on the proper lobbying of governments – states that PRCA members must not “make any award of payment in money or in kind… to any MP”. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on Rayner’s part.

A spokesperson for Sovereign told openDemocracy the donation was made by the company’s chairman in a personal capacity, but was unwilling to provide any further details. A Labour source, however, confirmed the donation was from the company and made by its company bank account.

The PRCA said it was reviewing the information openDemocracy provided.

In January this year, a senior account manager at Sovereign who was involved in organising the Edinburgh roundtable joined the executive committee of Labour Business, an affiliate of the party that focuses on fostering links between Labour and the business community, in January.

The Sovereign staffer in question previously worked for the Labour Party for a number of years in the business relations and endorsements team.

They are one of a large number of former Labour staffers to have left their positions at the party to join Westminster consultancies and lobbying firms the past 18 months, as firms look to beef-up their Labour bona fides in anticipation of a Conservative wipeout at the next election.

Steve Goodrich, the head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK, told openDemocracy: “Parties should scrupulously avoid the perception that they’re offering privileged political access in return for cash.

“The next general election looks set to be the most expensive in modern times so it’s crucial that politicians of all stripes avoid stumbling into quid pro quos in the rush for funds.

“Until we reduce the cost of politics, cases like these will continue to undermine public trust in our democracy, which is already perilously low.”

Original article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

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Continue ReadingLabour in ‘cash for access’ scandal over meetings with £150k donor

Left Foot Forward on Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, climate activists and Liz Truss

Tory Party members deliver scathing verdict on Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, with record negative rating

Tory Party members have delivered a scathing verdict on Rishi Sunak and his cabinet, with a record number of ministers given a negative approval rating, according to the Conservative Home website.

It’s a further sign of just how unpopular Sunak and his government are, ahead of the May 2nd local elections, as pressure continues to mount on the Prime Minister.

The latest survey of Tory members conducted in March, shows that 12 ministers have negative ratings, that is up from 11 the month before.

At the bottom of the table is Michael Tomlinson, illegal immigration minister, with a negative rating of 43.1, with Rishi Sunak next at -27.7.

The Prime Minister is then followed by chancellor Jeremy Hunt on minus 22.7, with Michael Gove on -14.3 and Oliver Dowden on -12.0. Lord Cameron is on -7.8.

…

Tories plot shock political comeback for Boris Johnson

The plot shows just how out of touch and deranged the Tory party is.

A group of Tory MPs is plotting to bring Boris Johnson back in to a senior role with the Conservative Party and also want to replace Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with Suella Braverman.

The plot, which the Sun is reporting has been hatched by the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) – a powerful Tory members group, comes as Sunak continues to face mounting pressure with the Tories trailing the Labour Party in the polls by around 20 points.

With local elections taking place on May 2nd, it’s expected that there will be another push by Tory rebels to oust Sunak should the party perform badly. Some analysts have predicted that the Tories could be set to lose 500 council seats in the upcoming local elections on May 2nd. That’s half of the party’s councillors facing election.

…

Climate activists drop giant banner on Westminster Bridge in pre-election warning to MPs

Campaigners are demanding an end to the ‘toxic influence’ of oil money in UK politics

Activists dropped a massive banner over Westminster Bridge this morning to launch a new campaign vowing to challenge MPs who accept oil money in the run-up to a general election. 

As MPs return to parliament after the Easter recess, climate campaigners have issued a warning that they will be holding politicians to account to end the “toxic influence” of fossil fuel lobbyists in Westminster. 

Campaigners for the Stop Polluting Politics movement said they will challenge current and prospective MPs to reject donations from high-polluting industries as they argue the influence from Big Oil is leading to the rollback of key climate policies. 

It comes as the UK Government came under huge criticism for announcing over 100 new oil and gas licences, while it was revealed the Tory Party received £3.5m from polluters and climate deniers in 2022. 

…

Shameless Liz Truss refuses to rule out running for Tory leader again saying she has ‘unfinished business’

Labour said the prospect of her returning as leader “will send shivers down the spine of working people”.

Shameless Liz Truss who became Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister after her disastrous economic policies resulted in her being booted out of office after just 49 days, has refused to rule out running again for leader of the Tory party.

Truss, who has shown no humility after wrecking the economy with her mini-budget, which saw mortgage rates spiralling and resulted in the pound plummeting in value, believes she has ‘unfinished business’.

The former Tory party leader made the comments during an interview with LBC, while promoting her new book, ’10 years to save the West’, which is out today.

…

Top 5 utterly bizarre comments Liz Truss made during her book promotion

Liz Truss was all over the airwaves today while promoting her new book ‘Ten Years To Save the West’ making a whole number of bizarre and eyebrow-raising claims. 

The Tories are trying to be ‘fashionable’ 

When asked about the government’s climate policies (forget the numerous recent climate policy rollbacks) Truss believed the government had a “ruthless Net Zero agenda” which she claimed was “ruining the economy”. She went on to say it was all down to the Conservatives wanting to “appear fashionable, rather than basing what they’re doing on their principles”. Not sure that’s going very well for them.

The ‘Left smear’ against her

The former-PM made the claim that the backlash against her mini-budget wasn’t due to its disastrous impact on the UK economy and millions of UK households, but in fact down to a ‘smear’ campaign by the Left.

The former PM who seems to lack any sense of self-awareness claimed on LBC the Left were “smearing” her by blaming everything wrong with the economy on her mini-budget. 

“What they are saying is not born by the facts, It’s a smear,” Truss said. “I’m countering it and a lot of economists are countering it. 

“In the same way they say the government was trying to abolish the forests, they are trying to smear me with economic results that I’m clearly not responsible for.”

…

Continue ReadingLeft Foot Forward on Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, climate activists and Liz Truss

‘It’s death there’: babies and children hit hardest as famine tightens hold on Gaza

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/15/babies-children-gaza-famine

Estimated 27 children killed by famine, with fears many more will suffer lifelong effects, despite Israel’s promise of more aid

Even if the war in Gaza ended tomorrow, for some of the Palestinian territory’s children, it would not help. Hunger and malnutrition have already claimed an estimated 27 young lives, and for many more, it may be too late to reverse the excruciating toll that starvation takes on small, growing bodies.

Nuzha Awad’s triplets, Malek, Khader and Moustafa, born two months before the war began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, did not stop crying as she spoke to the Guardian. She fled Gaza City when food and formula for her babies began to run out; in their new home, a makeshift tent in the central town of Deir al-Balah, she is still desperately afraid for their futures.

“At this age a child should weigh 8 kilos. They weigh 2 kilos … They don’t have thighs yet. At this stage they are supposed to be crawling and preparing to walk. And now you can see the state they’re in,” she said.

“Are these the arms of an eight-month-old child? … It’s death there, death, death. Death in the literal meaning of the word.”

UN-backed food insecurity experts assessed in mid-March that famine n Gaza could set in between later that month and mid-May. Last week, Samantha Power, the head of the US humanitarian and development agency, USAid, became the first American official to confirm publicly that in some areas, famine had already taken hold.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/15/babies-children-gaza-famine

Continue Reading‘It’s death there’: babies and children hit hardest as famine tightens hold on Gaza

U.S. imperialism’s ‘ironclad’ support for Israel increases fascist danger at home

Original article by C.J. ATKINS republished from peoples world under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States.

The Biden administration’s declaration of ‘ironclad support’ for Israel threatens to drive a wedge between the president and progressive voters, a potential electoral gift for Trump. In this photo, a woman walks by an election campaign billboard in Tel Aviv for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party that shows the Israeli leader with Donald Trump, Sept 15, 2019. Hebrew on billboard reads: ‘Netanyahu, in another league.’ | Oded Balilty / AP

President Joe Biden declared Saturday that U.S. support for Israel is “ironclad” as more than 300 slow-moving Iranian drones and missiles meandered across the sky toward Israeli military installations. With assistance from the U.S., Britain, France, and Jordan, it’s estimated that 99% of the weapons were destroyed in the air before reaching their targets. There were zero people killed.

As Biden’s declaration was being reported, the Pentagon issued a statement saying that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had spoken with his Israeli counterpart “and made clear that Israel could count on full U.S. support.”

On television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu peddled the image of a besieged Israel fighting for its life. Wearing a stern face, he said, “We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination.”

Of course, once the cameras were off, the Israeli leader was no doubt smiling. That’s because the pledges from Biden and Austin guaranteed that U.S. weapons will keep flowing his way and that Western leaders’ criticism of his genocidal war in Gaza—which has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians—will be tamped down.

It wasn’t just Netanyahu celebrating this weekend, though. Here in the U.S., ex-President Donald Trump and his allies were also beaming. The militaristic neocons and religious extremists that make up different wings of the Republican coalition were united in cheering for a bigger war and blaming Biden for disaster.

They sense a moment of opportunity to divide anti-MAGA forces, and the policy being pursued by the White House is unfortunately aiding them in their effort. All these developments combine to make the demand for an immediate arms embargo on Israel all the more urgent.

Settler rampage: A Palestinian woman attacked by illegal Israeli settlers arrives at the Palestine Medical Complex in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Friday, April 12, 2024. While the world was consumed with the Iranian attack on Israel, dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village, killing Palestinians and destroying property. In Gaza, meanwhile, the genocidal destruction also continued unabated. | Nasser Nasser / AP

Netanyahu’s partial victory

The U.S. response to the Iranian attack was a partial victory for Netanyahu.

The weekend assault by Tehran was the result of Israel’s April 1 bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria. That last part is worth stating again—the Iranian attack this weekend was not some unprovoked incident; it was retaliation for an Israeli action that killed 13 people at an Iranian diplomatic outpost two weeks ago.

If one were only getting their news from the mainstream corporate media in the U.S. or listening to the words of many political leaders in Washington, they would probably never know that it was Israel that had provoked Iran.

That doesn’t make the latter part of some anti-imperialist alliance nor necessarily a friend of the Palestinians, but it is a context that is inconvenient for the narrative of an innocent Israel alone against aggressive neighbors.

At any rate, Netanyahu managed to prompt Iran to elevate the war danger. That will get him his weapons and temporarily hush the increasingly critical voices of allies skeptical of his execution of the war in Gaza. But the Iran provocation was not quite the complete win he’d hoped for.

The bigger goal was to escalate the war against Gaza into a wider regional war that would include direct U.S. involvement in the fighting. He wants to make U.S. imperialism not just his accomplice but his direct partner in waging war in the Middle East.

Why? The reasons are many.

So far, the Gaza genocide is not achieving many of its declared aims. Hamas has not been smashed. The hostages have not been freed. Gaza has been destroyed and tens of thousands have been killed, but the plan to completely eradicate the Palestinian presence there hasn’t materialized. That’s the case thanks to both Palestinian resistance and the refusal of Israel’s neighboring states to transform themselves into permanent refugee camps.

Meanwhile, the war is increasingly unpopular at home, and hundreds of thousands are demanding elections in Israel—elections which would certainly result in Netanyahu’s removal from office and the resumption of a long-delayed corruption trial that could send him to prison.

Clearly, he needs and wants this war to drag on as long as possible and to become as big and involve as many countries as possible, particularly one country—the United States.

To Netanyahu’s disappointment, however, Biden told him to consider the shootdown of all the Iranian missiles “a win” and close the book for now: Don’t expect U.S. help in any follow-up attacks on Iran.

The coalition for war

But there are other forces coalescing to give Israel the bigger war it wants.

John Bolton—former Trump cabinet member and one of the architects of the U.S. war in Iraq—is rallying neocons in the U.S. to squeeze Biden. Ever since President George W. Bush declared Iran to be part of the “Axis of Evil” over 20 years ago, Bolton and his allies have been angling for a fight with that country.

In January this year, he was already telegraphing the message that the U.S. has “no option but to attack Iran.”  This weekend, he said “passivity…would be a big mistake” and said Biden was “an embarrassment” for urging Israel not to attack Iran (again).

The Evangelical Christian leaders who command major swathes of the Trump MAGA coalition, meanwhile, are revving up their followers for war, as well.

Televangelist Pastor John Hagee, founder of the lobbyist group Christians United for Israel, characterized the Iranian attack as the fulfillment of prophecy, the beginning of the “Gog and Magog war” predicted in the Bible. Demonizing those who advocate a ceasefire in Gaza, Hagee said on Sunday that “the word de-escalate is music to the ears of Hamas and Iran.”

He and other pro-war Christian leaders will be going to Congress “like a bulldozer” in the coming days, he said, ordering lawmakers to “bless Israel” with more U.S. taxpayer-funded weaponry. In the meantime, he urged the faithful to bless the ministry run by him and his son with their hard-earned money.

Then, turning to the 2024 U.S. elections, Hagee indirectly endorsed Donald Trump when he called the Iranian attack on Israel “a tribute to the weak and pathetic leadership of Joe Biden.”

Fascist threat, imperialist strategy

Although Hagee’s remarks are often dismissed as the ravings of a conman cult leader, he illuminates the class and democratic contradictions that define U.S. capitalism and an electoral contest that is forcing voters to choose between two varieties of imperialism.

The absurdity of the moment was perhaps best illustrated when the red-hatted legions at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday broke into chants of “Genocide Joe,” and their leader responded, “They’re not wrong!”

Trump paired his apparent acknowledgement that Israel was committing genocide with U.S. complicity with a “God bless Israel” platitude and an affirmation that the Iranian attack wouldn’t have happened if he was president.

Follow the logic (if there is such a thing with Trump), and you get a pledge that he will do an even better job at assisting in genocide and supporting the Israeli military if he is re-elected.

An open fascist who has already tried to overthrow the U.S. government before and is working tirelessly with Republican officials across the country to destroy democracy is openly and cynically attempting to drive a wedge between the Democratic nominee and anti-war voters with a pro-war message.

Does Trump actually expect to win the votes of many pro-Palestinian voters? No, most of them wouldn’t give him the time of day, and he knows it. The goal is to demobilize progressive voters and stoke discontent toward Biden. Trump’s team has done its calculations, and it knows that getting Democratic-leaning voters to stay home in a few key states could be enough for him to win. And the threat extends down-ballot, because it’s not just Biden who’d be in trouble but other progressive candidates running on the Democratic ticket at the state and local levels, as well.

Unfortunately, the imperialist strategy being pursued by the Biden administration is making Trump’s task easier. The unity that’s needed to block fascism at the polls in November is jeopardized every time the president approves another weapons shipment to Israel or reaffirms his “ironclad” support of the government in Tel Aviv.

Ceasefire alone cannot be the demand of the peace movement in our country. A total and complete arms embargo on Israel is an absolute necessity—not just for saving the lives of the Palestinian people and preventing a wider Middle East war, but for saving U.S. democracy from a fascist takeover.

Many organizations and leaders are already making that call, including Jewish Voice for Peace, which on Sunday issued yet another call for the U.S. to end all military funding and weapons sales.

Rep. Cori Bush again reiterated the demand she and other lawmakers have made for an end to the “shameful and unconditional” arming of the Israeli government as it commits war crimes. “The people of our country do not want war,” she said.

There are a million reasons to vote against Trump in November, and almost everyone who is a part of or connected to the mass labor, anti-war, African-American, Latino, immigrant rights, LGBTQ, and other democratic movements know them by heart. But the Democratic National Committee and the Biden campaign cannot simply rely on the bogeyman of Trump to motivate voters. The administration’s Gaza policy must change.

Every dollar for Israel’s war is another crack in the anti-MAGA coalition that’s needed to stop fascism in November.

As with all news-analytical and op-ed articles published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.

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Original article by C.J. ATKINS republished from peoples world under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States.

Continue ReadingU.S. imperialism’s ‘ironclad’ support for Israel increases fascist danger at home