Tories receive £1m funding boost from billionaire Brexiter

A billionaire staunch Brexiter who ploughed millions into the leave campaign during the EU referendum has donated £1m to the Conservatives’ election war chest.

Peter Hargreaves, a businessman and co-founder of one of the country’s largest financial services firms, gave the sum despite previously labelling the Tory leader, Boris Johnson, a “buffoon”.

Hargreaves, who backed leaving Brussels without a deal, donated £3.2m to the Leave.EU campaign founded by Arron Banks but admitted earlier this year he had “totally given up” on Brexit and was in “despair”.

The donation emerged in the latest set of figures released by the Electoral Commission, which showed that the Conservatives banked nearly £3.6m in donations in just a week to 26 November – almost seven times as much as the Labour party.

Labour received just £521,909, mainly made of funds from unions, and the Liberal Democrats only £509,998. The Green party received £100,000 and Northern Ireland’s Alliance party banked £15,000. In total, parties reported donations worth £4.7m between 20-26 November, the third week of general election campaigning since the dissolution of parliament.

The figures do not include donations under £7,500, meaning the totals do not account for smaller sums given to parties. Last month, Labour said it had received £1m in small donations in the first 10 days since the election was called, with the average amount totalling £26.

The biggest donation to parties during the week to 26 November was made by Hargreaves, who is said to be worth more than £3bn. Earlier this year, the 73-year-old tycoon, who owns a stake in investment giant Hargreaves Lansdown, issued a warning about what he characterised as the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s “extreme socialism”. He wrote in April: “Corbyn’s extreme socialism presents serious worries. His incompetence and indecision will leave the UK in oblivion.”

But he is apparently no fan of Johnson either, as his attack on Corbyn came just months after he called Johnson a “buffoon” in an interview with the Daily Mail in August 2018.

Nevertheless, he praised the Brexit-backing Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has been kept away from the general election campaign after prompting outrage last month when he claimed that it would have been “common sense” to ignore fire brigade advice and flee the Grenfell Tower block fire. Hargreaves commended Rees-Mogg for running a “successful business”.

Donations figures released last month showed that Labour received almost £3.5m in the week to 19 November, compared to the Tories, who were given just under £3m.