Conservative calls for an investigation into donations to Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign have been dismissed as “mudslinging” by a minister.
Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake has alleged that Sir Keir may have failed to declare “potentially thousands of pounds’ worth” of support from campaign group Labour Together when he ran for the Labour leadership in 2020.
In a letter to Parliament’s standards watchdog, Mr Hollinrake said details published in Get In, a book on Sir Keir’s rise to power, suggested Labour Together had provided polling, speechwriting and other help to the now Prime Minister.
But although Sir Keir’s parliamentary register of interests includes large donations from Labour Together’s backers, it does not refer to any “donations in kind” from the group itself.
Mr Hollinrake said absence of any declarations had “all the hallmarks of yet another Downing Street cover up” and urged Sir Keir to “come clean and be transparent” about support he had received from Labour Together.
But housing minister Matthew Pennycook dismissed the allegations on Tuesday, saying it was “yet more mudslinging” from the Conservatives “in a desperate bid to stay relevant as a party”.
He told Times Radio: “My understanding is that everything in relation to the leadership contest has been properly declared.
“Obviously, if anyone wants to make a reference to the commissioner for parliamentary standards, they will investigate any alleged breaches.
“I think in this instance, it will be a very simple and short investigation, because everything has been properly declared.”
Mr Hollinrake’s letter follows similar calls for the Electoral Commission, and potentially the police, to look into handling of donations to Labour Together while the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was its director.
The organisation was fined £14,250 by the elections watchdog over its handling of donations in 2021, but the Tories claimed leaked emails suggested Mr McSweeney had sought to mislead the commission.
A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission said the issue had been “thoroughly investigated” in 2021 and had been “satisfied that the evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt that failures by the association occurred without reasonable excuse”.
She added: “Offences were determined and they were sanctioned accordingly.”
