Labour is on the ropes and are worried that Reform UK will take a large chunk of their voters and the SpaceX chief Elon Musk could donate tens of millions to Nigel Farage’s party.
As such Labour Ministers could use new laws to block any donation from Musk to the Reform UK party as Farage has said during a recent meeting with Nick Candy and the Tesla boss last week in Florida “money was discussed.”
Labour’s Lucy Powell who is the leader of the House of Commons, has suggested that they could block political donations from Musk to Reform UK.
Powell was asked if Labour will prevent Musk donating millions of pounds to Farage’s party, she told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, “We’ve no immediate plans to do that, but we do have a manifesto commitment to look more broadly at our elections regime in this country, from things like votes at 16, which we’re committed to, but also to make sure that our electoral system has got that integrity and is robust from many of the new issues that face undermining our democracy and our elections.
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“But just to be clear that foreign donations to UK-based political parties is prohibited under current law, so that’s something that already exists.”
Foreign donations are not allowed in UK politics, however Musk operates British registered businesses so contributions would be allowed from a “UK registered company.”
Powell told Sky News that the government could announce new legislation in the Elections Bill that is planned in July.
The leader of the House of Commons told Phillips, “We are committed to bringing forward some changes to the way in which elections are run in this country.
“There will be an Elections Bill probably in the next parliamentary session, but obviously we’ve not made those decisions yet because we are committed to things like votes at 16, which is in our manifesto.
“And our manifesto also said that we would look at other issues to make sure that our elections in this country are fair, are robust, are free from many of the issues that are undermining our democracy at the moment, like mis- and disinformation, foreign state actors and so on, and making sure that the issues around donations are also fair and robust as well.”
Earlier this month Sir Keir Starmer was accused of “governing like a despot” and Labour are “running scared” from Reform UK.
This comes as Reform UK could take a large slice of Labour’s areas and it is “quite clear these elections are potentially being cancelled” due to the “rise of Reform,” a party source told GB News.
Local government minister Jim McMahon warned that in 2025 some elections might no take place as local authorities could either be closed or merge.
This has sparked anger from Reform UK as the party has seen a wide range of success across council votes, GB News reports.
Labour is thinking of scrapping local elections which is part of Angela Rayner’s “devolution” plan, LBC has revealed that Sussex, Hertfordshire, Kent and Essex are part of those areas.
Ahead of the May local elections Reform UK are targeting seats across the UK and Labour has been issued with warnings over their “threat to democracy.”
A spokesman for the party told GB News, “It’s quite clear these elections are potentially being cancelled because of the rise of Reform.
“They’re running scared of the ballot box. Labour knows the only way they can avoid losing the elections is if they cancel them.”
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