Political Parties

Question 1

How are parties funded?

Answer 1

Membership fees
Donations
Short money

Question 2

Short money

Answer 2

Short money is the funds received by opposition parties that win two or more seats in the House of Commons at the general election or win one seat and gain more than 150,000 votes.
Short money is designed to cover party administrative costs and to allow for effective scrutiny of the government.

Question 3

Funding for new labour

Answer 3

Traditionally, Labour received most of its funding from trade unions, but efforts were made by Tony Blair to decrease union influence in the Labour party.
Under new labour, the party was predominantly funded by wealthy individuals such as Lord Sainsbury and Bernie Ecclestone.

Question 4

Conservative party funding

Answer 4

The majority of donations to the Tory party come from hedge funds and bankers as revealed in 2017. The Tory’s receive the majority of their funding from wealthy donors such as Ehud Sheleg and Lord Bamford.

Question 5

Party funding under Jeremy Corbyn

Answer 5

Under Jeremy Corbyn, there has been a move towards a large amount of party funding coming from ordinary members of the party with over £18 million received in 2017.
There has also been a rise in trade union support under Jeremy Corbyn with Trade Union unite donating £4.5 million towards the 2017 election campaign.