Ex-Autoglass boss to donate £5m to Labour in bid to smash Tories at election
The former Autoglass chief Gary Lubner is set to donate £5m to Labour to bolster its coffers ahead of the next election battle.
The South African-born businessman told the Financial Times he had wanted to help Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer get the party into power “for a long time”.
He said: “This is the beginning. I intend to give more as we move towards the general election.
“In the long list of Tory failures in the last 13 years, Brexit is top of the list. It’s a disaster. There’s nothing good about it. Nothing.”
His move will be welcomed by Labour as proof the party is repairing relations with donors, while party insiders may read it as a milestone en route to replacing Rishi Sunak at No 10.
Plans to donate more
Lubner plans to donate the “vast majority” of his wealth – including to charity – the FT said.
“There’s only one bed you can sleep in,” he added. “My kids are not interested. I don’t think it’s the right thing to pass on that amount of wealth.”
The tycoon gave £500,000 to Starmer’s party in the first quarter of 2023, according to Electoral Commission figures set to be released on Thursday, the FT reported.
He has also given £200,000 in previous donations and said he had given “significantly more” throughout Q2 – with plans to ramp up his spending ahead of the next general election.
Lubner, who made hundreds of millions as CEO of Belron, the world’s leading car glass repair firm and owner of Autoglass, confirmed £5m was a reasonable figure to predict.
Top Labour donor
That amount would make him one of the party’s biggest individual donors, with former supermarket chairman Lord David Sainsbury recently handing Starmer £2m, and the party expecting to exceed the £6m it raised in donations last year in the first of 2023.
While the Egyptian-born Mohamed Mansour recently gifted £5m of his billions in wealth to the Conservatives.
Lubner, whose grandparents were Jewish refugees from Russia, said he was “horrified” at witnessing the antisemitism in Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.
He added: “Starmer got rid of them, to his credit. It was a real cancer in the party.”
Labour has been contacted for comment.