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Labour has said it is returning more than ￡40,000 donated by a convicted criminal who the party had already expelled as a member.
The donations came from businessman Abdul Sattar Shere-Mohammod, 55, known as Shere Sattar, who was convicted of actual bodily harm in 2022 and thrown out of Labour later that year.
The money includes ￡10,300 given to the central party last June, a figure that is just below the threshold to be disclosed to the elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission.
The revelations raise questions about Labour’s procedures for accepting political donations, an issue which hit the headlines following reports earlier this year that Elon Musk planned to give Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party $100m (￡74m).
In its manifesto at the last election, Sir Keir Starmer’s party pledged to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”.
As well as the money given to the party, ￡15,000 was donated by Mohammod to, in part, support the re-election of Portsmouth MP Stephen Morgan, the early education minister. The party said Mr Morgan was not aware of his conviction.
His local party should have declared these, but Labour has blamed an “administrative error” that it said was being rectified.
Stephen Morgan, the early education minister(PA)
Mohammod also gave ￡10,000 to the local party of Southampton MP Satvir Kaur and ￡5,000 to Amanda Martin, another Portsmouth MP. Both declared the money in their parliamentary register of interests.
TheSunday Times, which first reported the donations, said the money given to Mr Morgan and his local party only emerged when a reporter contacted Mohammod.
Asked about his conviction this week, Mohammod told the paper he had been present during a violent confrontation after his son’s bike had been stolen. He said he had tried to prevent a “bad situation” but that his sons had gotten into a fight. He denied personally assaulting the victim.
The ￡10,300 donation to the party was below the ￡11,180 limit set by the Electoral Commission, meaning it didn’t need to be declared.
In a statement, the commission said: “Donations that have been reported late by parties and accounting units are considered in line with our enforcement policy. We can confirm we are currently considering this matter.”
Labour said that because Mr Morgan’s crowdfunding page said that donations would also support other campaigns in Portsmouth, it could not be considered a direct donation to him and did not need to be declared in his register of interests.
It is understood that the donations would be submitted to the Electoral Commission in the party’s next quarterly return. A spokesperson said: “These donations were made to Portsmouth Labour Party. Action has since been taken to return them.”
They also said that Ms Kaur returned her donation last year, and Ms Martin was in the process of doing so, while the national party did so on Thursday after being contacted by The Sunday Times.