Ex-Tory donor scathing about party’s response to
Michelle Mone allegations
Exclusive: Gareth Quarry, who now donates to Labour,
says Conservatives have trashed their reputation
Kiran
Stacey
Wed 7 Dec
2022 07.00 GMT
A former
Conservative donor who recently defected to Labour has launched a scathing
attack on his former party, saying their response to the allegations about the
Tory peer Michelle Mone has only strengthened his determination to help oust
them from office.
Gareth
Quarry, a businessman who recently gave Labour £50,000, told the Guardian he
planned to increase that sum in the coming months, saying the Tories had
trashed their reputation and that of the country.
He pointed
to the row over the Conservative peer Lady Mone, who announced on Tuesday she
was taking leave of absence from the House of Lords after the Guardian revealed
she appeared to have received millions from the profits of a PPE company that
was given government funding. Labour last night won a vote that will force the
government to publish some documents underpinning that contract.
Quarry
said: “The Tory response is indefensible. If there is nothing to hide, why are
we having to dance this dance to get disclosure? But it fits a pattern – there
seems to be a total inability on the part of the Tory party to put their hand
up and say we got this wrong.
“The moral
standards of the party have been completely trashed over many years.”
He added:
“My wife [Jillian Whitehouse] and I both donated £50,000 in the last quarter,
and we both intend to increase that. Without question there will be more.”
Mone has
previously denied having any relationship with the company PPE Medpro. Her
spokesperson said on Tuesday she was taking leave from the Lords “in order to
clear her name of the allegations that have been unjustly levelled against
her”.
Quarry
added that he thought the splits in his former party – over everything from
Brexit to planning – would keep it out of power for at least a decade. “The
running sore in the Tory party is still sore, it is still weeping and until the
offending limb has been cut off the Tories are never going to solve their
problem,” he said.
“They are
unelectable for certainly a decade and maybe longer.”
The
Conservatives did not respond to a request to comment.
Quarry is
one of a number of Conservative donors who have stopped donating to the party
in recent months, contributing to a slump in donations in the most recent
quarter.
Figures
released on Tuesday by the Electoral Commission showed the party had raised just
under £3m between July and September this year – the lowest since mid-2020 and
a drop of over 40% from the previous quarter. Conservative sources pointed out
that the period included the leadership election to succeed Boris Johnson,
during which time both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak both received personal
donations of over £400,000.
Labour is
hoping to entice more wealthy backers such as Quarry, and is hosting a business
conference on Thursday at Canary Wharf, which will be attended by more than 400
business leaders and lobbyists. Among those due to speak at the event are
Justin King, the former chief executive of Sainsbury’s, and Amanda Blanc, chief
executive of the insurer Aviva.
The data
released on Tuesday showed the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is having some
success persuading rich donors to come back to the party after many left during
the years when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. One of the biggest individual
donations came from Fran Perrin, the daughter of David Sainsbury, the longtime
Labour donor who stopped giving under Corbyn.
Quarry, who
made his money by building and selling two legal recruitment businesses, said:
“I joined Labour because it is a latter-day Blair-type party. If it was still
led by its Corbyn wing I would have stopped donating to the Conservatives but I
would not have gone to Labour.”
Quarry said
other business leaders were considering joining the party, though he would not
give any names. However, he said he now regarded Labour as the “party of
business” after the turmoil of the last year.
“What do I
need in business? I need stability and a level playing field, both domestically
and internationally.”
A remain
backer, he said he did not expect the UK would be able to rejoin the EU. But he
added: “We need a party who can negotiate with the rest of the EU, and for that
you have to have the confidence of the people with whom you are dealing.
“The Tories
have trashed our reputation with Europe and our reputation for trust.”
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