Scotland Yard assesses claims Labour traded fox hunting ban for £1m donation
Scotland Yard is assessing claims that Labour banned fox hunting in return for a £1m donation from an animal rights group.
The Metropolitan Police is looking into new allegations that Lord Mandelson and another senior Labour figure suggested that the party introduced the ban in 2004 in return for the £1m donation from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
Brian Basham, a former Labour fundraiser, said he had “known for many years” that Labour’s Hunting Act 2004 was “bought and paid for by a political donation” from IFAW in 1996.
He claimed that he had been sent by Jonathan Powell, then Sir Tony Blair’s chief of staff and now No 10’s national security adviser, to collect the money from Brian Davies, IFAW’s late founder.
The new accounts of the affair from Lord Mandelson, the disgraced former US ambassador, and Mr Basham have been referred to Scotland Yard by pro-hunting campaigners in a formal complaint requesting that detectives investigate the party for alleged misconduct in public office.
Donation made before 1997 general election
A Met Police spokesman said: “On Monday, April 20 we received a report in relation to a donation made to a political party prior to the 1997 general election. Officers are currently assessing this report.”
Police sources said it would be “inaccurate at this stage” to suggest that the Met had launched an investigation or that any individual was under investigation.
An email to the complainant seen by The Telegraph said: “It will initially go through the first line of assessment to make sure everything is recorded properly. At this point it will then be passed to the relevant unit for investigation.”
The complaint was lodged by an environmental financier supported by his legal team. Ed Swales, the founder of Hunting Kind, who has been involved in the submission, said: “My whole mantra is to stand up for what has happened to us and restore natural hunting within wildlife management and sustainable land use.
“I want to fight this one for what we believe in rather than the 20 years of being reactive and just getting salami sliced bit by bit.”
A Labour spokesman said: “All donations to the Labour Party are declared transparently, in line with the rules, and have no bearing on party policy.
“The circumstances surrounding this donation have been publicly discussed for many years and are already a matter of public record.”
The new claims come as Labour moves to enact its 2024 manifesto pledge to ban trail hunting, a policy publicly backed by Andy Burnham, the incoming Prime Minister.
Lord Mandelson, who is being investigated by the Met for misconduct in public office over the alleged leaking of sensitive government information, made his claims about the donation in an interview in December 2023.
As part of a discussion over whether donors had put parties under pressure to change policy, he said: “I can offer you an example from 1997 where an organisation – it was a fund to do with the welfare of animals – got pretty transactional with us. It was the first and last time I remember this.
“They wanted a ban on hunting in return for a very sizeable amount of money. And Blair and co were sort of reluctant obviously to enter into some sort of trade over this policy. However, there were a lot of people in the party who wanted that ban – there were a lot of MPs coming and demanding it.
“And we got into a difficult situation where frankly we went a little bit too far – further than Blair wanted – in making this commitment in our manifesto. It was, frankly, under not duress but under some sort of pressure. It wasn’t attractive and it’s not been repeated.”
Mandelson’s ‘eruption of honesty’
A week later in a letter to the Guardian newspaper, Mr Basham said: “I’ve known for many years that Labour’s Hunting Act 2004 was bought and paid for by a political donation, but I was surprised to see Mandelson admit it in an eruption of honesty.”
He then claimed that he had been sent by Mr Powell in 1996 to meet Davies at the Draycott Hotel in Chelsea where “I collected from him a cheque for £1m made out to Labour”.
“As he handed over the cheque, he was fiercely direct: ‘We have to stop hunting with dogs’,” added Mr Basham.
He said that shortly after, Sir Tony appointed Lord Levy as Labour’s chief fundraiser to run a “high donor” campaign.
Mr Basham said he disagreed with this policy, arguing instead that Labour should stick with his approach of focusing on thousands of small donations from a lot of people, the so-called “1,000 club”.
“We set our faces specifically against attracting large donations because of the potential they carry for corrupting policy and people,” he said.
“With Davies’ cheque warm in my mind, as soon as I was told that Blair wanted to concentrate on high-level donors, I went immediately to see the general secretary of the Labour party, Margaret McDonagh, and told her that I was resigning from fundraising.
“She asked me why. I said: ‘If someone gives you £100,000 they want something. If they give you £1m they demand it.’
“It’s all a most terrible shame. Party political funding is deeply corrupting. We need state funding of political parties, combined with prison sentences for those who breach tightly prescriptive rules.”
Labour has consistently denied that the hunting ban was linked to the £1m donation or that there was any agreement with IFAW to introduce it in return for the money.
In response to Lord Mandelson’s comments, a spokesman for Sir Tony said: “This is a misinterpretation of what was said, there was no such agreement. [Lord Mandelson] is clearly saying there were a lot of people who had passionate views on the subject.”
Mr Powell was contacted for comment via the Cabinet Office, but the request was passed to party political advisers.
Politics Editor
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
