It was my pleasure to welcome , founder of * Democracy for Sale, *an independent investigative journalism organisation examining money, power and influence in British politics.
Peter has been a pioneer in this field, work for which he won this year’s prestigious Private Eye Paul Foot Award. We discussed his route into investigative journalism, from the Channel 4 Dispatches training scheme and openDemocracy to establishing Democracy for Sale, whose newsletter now reaches more than 60,000 people.
Peter explained how his investigation into almost £500,000 channelled to the DUP during the Brexit referendum led him to examine the wider system of political funding.
We discussed the unprecedented £72 million recently given to Reform UK by two cryptocurrency billionaires, the party’s enthusiasm for lax cryptocurrency regulation and the relationship between political donations and policy. Political donations have increased dramatically over the past decade, yet Britain still places no general limit on how much an individual or company can give.
We also examined the failure of successive governments to reform the system. The Electoral Commission can impose civil penalties, but more serious alleged breaches must be referred to the police, and investigations into political funding have rarely resulted in significant action. The recent police investigations into Reform might prove a welcome exception to the rule.
Peter argued that Reform is exploiting weaknesses which have existed for years and that both Labour and the Conservatives have undermined their authority to tackle the problem by benefiting from the same system. The pattern is always the same: opposition parties talk a good game about reforming political funding, but their good intentions evaporate once in power and the money begins flowing from donors. Andy Burnham’s decision to withdraw his previous support for a cap on political donations continues this disappointing tradition.
Finally, we discussed the pressures facing investigative journalists, from being denied access and deliberately stonewalled to injunctions, libel threats and other forms of lawfare. Peter described how Democracy for Sale combines documents, data, Freedom of Information requests and traditional source-building to uncover stories about money, power and influence.
Its independence allows its small team to follow the evidence wherever it leads, but the disappearance of training schemes and traditional routes into journalism has made it much harder for a new generation of investigative reporters to acquire those skills.
Peter is also the author of the Sunday Times bestseller * Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics*, a forensic investigation into the secretive money, digital manipulation and powerful interests reshaping British politics and democracies across the West.
