Election 2017: Tories raise more than double Labour in large donations during final month

Total amount handed to the Tories between the 3 and 30 May was £10,870,491

The total amount handed to the Tories between the 3 and 30 May was £10,870,491 (Getty)

The Tories raised more than £10m in donations last month, more than double the amount Labour took over the period and 200 times more than the Greens.

Theresa May’s party received £1,115,833 in donations of £7,500 or more between 24 May and 30 May, the last week for which figures from the Electoral Commission are available. Their biggest single donation totalling £250,000 came from a billionaire hedge fund manager.

Labour managed just shy of that, with £1,046,692, coming mainly from the Unite and Communication Workers unions.

The Liberal Democrats took £108,024 in the seven-day period while the Green Party was handed a single donation worth £10,000.

The Women’s Equality Party took £20,544 and Ukip were not listed as having received any donations.

British-Australian businessman Michael Hi24 Mayntze was the Tories’ biggest backer, handing over a quarter-of-a-million pounds on 25 May.

Among the other big Conservative donors were Ehud Sheleg, an Israeli-born private art gallery director, Arne Groes, a banker, and Keith Bradsaw, a businessman, who each gave £100,000.

Figures for the previous week show the Tories surging ahead with donations, taking £3,772,550 between 17 May and 23 May while Labour raised £331,499 from donations of more than £7,500.

Figures for the final eight days of campaigning will be released later in June.

The total amount handed to the Tories between the 3 and 30 May was £10,870,491, the Electoral Commission pre-polling figures show.

That compares with £4,472,416 for the Labour Party, £861,644 for the Lib Dems, £131,576 for the Women’s Equality Party, £99,300 for Ukip and £52,866 for the Greens.

The figures mean the Tories have raised more than double the amount of Labour and 200 times the amount donated to the Greens over the 27-day period.

Analysis published last week found the Conservative party is heavily reliant on large cash donations from hedge funds, bankers, and magnates to fund its campaigns.

Between the 2015 general election and 24 May, 18.6 per cent of all donations to the party – totalling more than £8.4m – have come from hedge funds or people associated, while 6.5 per cent, or £2.9m, have come from investment bankers and the finance sector in general.

Another 7.9 per cent of the party’s funding or £3.6m comes from property magnates, with a further chunk coming from fossil fuel companies.