The battle on the right is well underway, with competition between Reform and the Tories for attention, ideas and personnel. One front where the Conservatives have had more success to date is on donations, with Kemi Badenoch’s party comfortably outstripping Nigel Farage’s forces in the first quarter of this year. But with Reform topping the polls for the past seven months, it is no surprise that some Tory donors are now sniffing around and keeping their options open.
One donor of particular note is Lord Bamford, the chairman of JCB. A former Boris backer, he gave Badenoch £150,0000 at the beginning of June. But Farage has been building his own relationship with the construction giant. He rode in at the party’s local election rally on a piece of JCB equipment and did a photo stunt with the firm back in April too. Senior figures within the party have been hoping for months to secure a donation – so they will be delighted that their prayers have now been finally answered. In a statement released today, a spokesman for JCB said:
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and there are 5.6 million of them in Britain today, employing at least 13 million people. JCB has more than 800 suppliers in the UK and the vast majority of them are also small to medium sized businesses. As a privately-owned British family business, JCB has been backing Britain since 1945 and is supportive of pro-business political parties that create the conditions for these businesses to grow and prosper. Both the Conservative Party and Reform UK believe in small business and it’s for that reason JCB has donated £200,000 to each in recent weeks.
With the Budget around the corner, who knows how many more businesses will be soon queuing up to turf Labour out eh?
Comments