ANDY Burnham has been slated for U-turning on a promise he made to a campaigner to cap political donations.
After records showed the Prime Minister received donations worth more than £325,000 in the three months before he entered No 10, he has opted not to back amendments to the elections bill which would cap the amount a person or an organisation can give in a single donation, according to government sources.
Burnham said just a few weeks ago to an electoral reform campaigner he would support a donations cap of £500,000.
The Prime Minister’s register of interests showed he took more than £22,000 from ThinkLabour – the new name of Labour Together – in July for IT and staffing equipment as well as £189,000 from two of the organisation's biggest historical donors .
Burnham accepted £164,000 from billionaire businessman and long-standing Labour donor Lord Sainsbury of Turville, largely towards his leadership campaign, and another £25,000 from Gary Lubner – one of the biggest donors to Labour Together and Keir Starmer's Labour from 2021.
His decision to U-turn is being reported as having been influenced by trade unions who said amendments to the bill, which returns to parliament for its remaining stages next week, could undermine their ability to donate to the party.
Investigative journalist Paul Holden, who was targeted in a Labour Together spying scandal, said the U-turn was "deeply disappointing" after records revealed the substantial donations from Lubner and Sainsbury.
This is being briefed as if it's unions opposing donations caps and that's why Burnham has caved on his promises to cap political donations at £500k. But we've literally JUST SEEN Burnham's donations disclosures, which are not even mentioned in this article. They show Burnham…
— Paul Holden (@pauleholden) August 26, 2026
"This is being briefed as if it's unions opposing donations caps and that's why Burnham has caved on his promises to cap political donations at £500k," he said on Twitter/X.
"But we've literally just seen Burnham's donations disclosures. They show Burnham getting a pittance from unions but substantial donations from Gary Lubner and Lord Sainsbury to support his Labour leadership bid.
"Lubner and Sainsbury were two of the biggest previous funders of Labour Together and the Starmer projects, who both personally made donations in the millions to Labour Together and/or the Labour Party.
"Burnham made his promise to cap donations at £500k to an activist in May this year. And then in June and July he gets bankrolled by the types of mega-donors who would be impacted by a donations cap, limiting their ability to influence politics. Then he drops the proposals that would impact on his personal donors. Deeply disappointing and really hard not to join these dots."
Shaun Bowler, the campaigner to whom Burnham promised his support for a donations cap in May, said he wanted to believe the Prime Minister as he urged him to keep his promise.
"If his government now refuses to back a donations cap, then he has broken the promise he made to me – and to voters," he said.
“I wanted to believe the positive message he gave me. I wanted to believe that someone was finally going to take on the culture that has left so many people feeling that their voices don’t matter and that wealthy people can buy influence over our government.
“But words mean nothing if they disappear the moment power is won. Large political donations are not democratic. They create influence, whether politicians want to admit it or not.
"He told me he wanted change. Now he needs to keep his promise and act.”
Stella Creasy, one of the Labour backbenchers who has tabled an amendment calling for a donations cap, also said the public "won't forgive us if we miss this chance to clean up Westminster".
An SNP spokesperson added: "Andy Burnham is clearly determined to beat Keir Starmer's record when it comes to U-turns. This latest U-turn on campaign finance is another sign that all his previous principles have rapidly disappeared the moment he got into Downing Street.
"Burnham has now U-turned on free tuition fees, on rejoining the EU, on the nationalisation of water. All the big promises he made to get into power are one-by-one vanishing into thin air.
"Keir Starmer promised people 'change' and turned out to be a disaster. Andy Burnham is now promising 'change' but U-turn by U-turn he is rapidly turning out to be another disappointment."
The elections bill was intended to lower the voting age to 16 and limit donations by foreign donors, but many in the Labour Party believe it should go further in a number of areas.
Some wants to use the next stage of the bill to try to introduce clauses banning cryptocurrency donations and cracking down on social media misinformation at election time.
In May, Burnham suggested he would back a £500,000 donations cap, telling Bowler that he thought it “would guard against the perception of any one party being unduly influenced or swayed by one person or organisation”.
But some trade unions including GMB mounted a campaign against the idea, urging MPs not to back an amendment by Creasy to cap donations at £100,000.
Creasy is now changing her amendment proposing a £500,000 cap that would be gradually reduced until ministers intervene to set it at a level with which they feel comfortable.
