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One of Labour’s biggest donors, Lord Waheed Alli, was given a security pass to Downing Street, where he was involved in organising an event, compounding claims of cronyism in the new government.
Alli, a Labour peer and media entrepreneur who was involved in creating the TV show Survivor, helped organise a post-election event in the garden of Number 10 to thank donors and volunteers after the election on July 4.
Alli was given a temporary pass after the general election last month and handed it back several weeks ago, according to a Downing Street spokesperson, who said the pass was due to expire at the end of August.
He attended a small number of political meetings where no civil servants were present and his involvement was entirely within the rules, they added.
Alli was made a lord by former prime minister Tony Blair in 1998, at 34, making him the youngest and first openly gay person in the House of Lords at that time.
He has donated more than £400,000 to Labour and its MPs since 2020, when Starmer became leader of the party.
He has also made several gifts to MPs, including a £1.2mn loan to help MP Siobhain McDonagh move house so that her sick sister could be cared for, £16,200 for Starmer to buy work clothing, and £20,000 in accommodation costs for the prime minister during the election campaign.
Over the past year, Alli has made donations to four cabinet ministers: Starmer, foreign secretary David Lammy, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and education secretary Bridget Phillipson.
Shadow paymaster general John Glen MP said that “Starmer’s sleaze is engulfing this new government”.
“It’s time Labour came clean on all the people they’ve parachuted into top civil service jobs and the donors they’ve returned favours to so the independence and integrity of the civil service is maintained,” he said.
Shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat, who is hoping to become the next leader of the Tory party, said that “it is time to reset our relationship with the British people and rebuild the trust lost to this type of sleaze and dishonesty, which is rotting our politics to its core”.
Tugendhat said Starmer lacked leadership, and had “serious questions to answer”, including whether he was involved in giving the pass to Alli and which exact meetings the businessman attended.
A senior government figure said that Waheed was a “big part of the election campaign” and a “hugely respected figure”. “He won’t have been involved in any policy or government meetings,” they added.
Alli has been contacted for comment. News of his having been given access to the prime minister’s workplace and official home, first reported by the Sunday Times, comes amid a brewing row around the appointment of Labour donors to civil service roles.
The new Labour government came under fire earlier this month for hiring Ian Corfield, a former banker and business adviser who made political donations to chancellor Rachel Reeves, to a senior role in the Treasury.
Following criticism of the appointment, Corfield has opted to leave the paid government position and instead take on a role as a temporary, unpaid adviser to the Treasury, according to people briefed on the move.
Former consultant Emily Middleton was also named a director-general in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology after she was seconded to the Labour party while it was in opposition.
The firm where she was a partner, Public Digital, had offered secondments worth more than £65,000 to the team of Peter Kyle, shadow technology secretary at the time, including Middleton’s own position.
