The UK Independence Party has received more money in donations than the Liberal Democrats for the first time. According to data from Britain’s Electoral Commission, UKIP reported receiving donations totalling £1.4 million during the second quarter of this year, £170,000 more than the Lib Dems.
The party’s biggest single donor is millionaire entrepreneur and former Conservative Party backer Paul Sykes, who donated over £1 million. He is estimated to be worth £400 million and has previously funded several poster campaigns by the party.
The figures also reveal that the Conservatives are receiving more in donations than any other party, well ahead of the competition with £7.2 million in the second quarter of 2014. Labour were a distant second, receiving only slightly more than half the Conservative total, with £3.8 million.
Labour’s biggest backer was the trade union Unison, whose chief-of-staff was recently reported to have lent his support to a group who back pro-Putin rebels in Ukraine.
In a sign of how the Scottish independence debate is hotting up, the Scottish National Party received £1.1 million in the second quarter of the year, putting them only just behind the UK-wide Liberal Democrats.
The figures will come as an embarrassment for the Lib Dems, who form part of the UK’s ruling coalition government. They have suffered poor poll ratings since entering into coalition with the Conservatives, and earlier this year lost all but one of their representatives in the European Parliament.
Polling data last week suggested that up to three quarters of their remaining supporters may yet desert them, something that would see them all but wiped out in next year’s General Election.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage told the Telegraph: “We have got a long way to go in terms of our fundraising but we are getting there. To overhaul the Lib Dems for the first time is another symptom of a very real change that is taking place in British politics.”
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