Rishi Sunak faces increasing pressure over donations from Frank Hester, whose comments about Diane Abbott have been condemned as racist and misogynistic, after it was reported he has given another £5m to the Conservatives.
The additional money, not denied by the party or Downing Street, would take Hester’s contributions to Tory party coffers in less than a year to £15m, almost as much as the Conservatives spent in the entire 2019 general election campaign.
There is disquiet among some Conservatives about the willingness to accept money from Hester, whose software firm has won lucrative NHS and prison contracts, after the Guardian revealed he told a 2019 meeting that seeing Abbott on TV made “you just want to hate all black women”.
Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said on Thursday that the donations should be “looked at” by the party, with Sayeeda Warsi, the Tory peer and former party chair, saying the money should be handed back.
Hester, who also said that Abbott, the UK’s longest-serving black MP, “should be shot”, gave £5m to the Tories in May 2023 and £5m more via his company, the Phoenix Partnership, which he formed and solely owns, in November.
According to the Tortoise website, he has given another £5m, which will be confirmed in the next Electoral Commission update of donations, due in early June.
A Conservative party spokesperson declined to comment, saying only: “Declarable donations will be published by the Electoral Commission in the usual way.” No Tory or No 10 officials sought to deny the donation, however.
If confirmed, the £15m total will mean Hester alone has donated almost as much as the near-£16.5m spent by the party in their entire 2019 campaign.
The Conservatives are likely to spend notably more in the forthcoming election, having overseen an increase in the total permitted per-party spending from close to £19m – it was set at £30,000 per seat contested – to about £34m.
This means few in the party expect Hester’s donations will be rebuffed. One former senior Conservative HQ official said: “There is no way they are returning that money. It’s just not happening. The sum is too large and they’ll have mostly spent it.”
Nevertheless, this is not without risk. Ross, speaking to journalists after first minister’s questions, echoed a call from the Scottish Conservatives for the UK party to “carefully review” the donations it received from Hester.
He said the comments were “racist, unacceptable and wrong”, adding: “I think the party at a UK level needs to look at that donation.”
Pressed on whether the money should be returned, he said: “I think this should be looked at. I think most people would think it’s fair to allow a review to review the situation and look into it.”
Lady Warsi told Times Radio: “They’ve got to give the money back. You don’t build election campaigns and you don’t build political parties on the back of money where an individual has these views.”
Labour has argued that Sunak cannot on the one hand argue against extremism and hate in politics, and also accept Hester’s money – although Keir Starmer said on Thursday that he did not expect the prime minister to hand back such a large sum.
“It’s a test for Rishi Sunak,” the Labour leader told LBC radio. “He’s failing that test. And if this report is true, I think it raises serious questions about what his real motivation is in clinging on to that money in the current environment.”
Some campaign groups have also expressed worry at the financial dominance of a donor whose company, the Phoenix Partnership, has won more than £400m of public contracts in the last eight years.
Tom Brake of Unlock Democracy, commenting on the current system where donors can also be government contractors, said: “To avoid any suggestion of impropriety, the Conservative party treasurer and individual MPs and constituency parties should decline any donation from a company or individual who has benefited from government contracts.”
In a statement on Monday, Hester’s company said he “accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.
Hester has been contacted for comment.
Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, said: “Frank Hester’s remarks were clearly racist, misogynistic and have no place in our politics. There is absolutely no excuse for the Conservatives accepting additional money from Frank Hester. They should pay this back before it hits the coffers.
“Rishi Sunak needs to pay back every penny, cut ties with Frank Hester and apologise unequivocally to Diane Abbott.”
Wendy Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat chief whip, said: “The Conservative party must urgently confirm whether these reports are true and if so hand this tainted money back.
“The Conservative party has dragged its feet in condemning these racist remarks for what they are. If that was in any way linked to this £5m donation it would show this scandal is even worse than we thought.”
