Robert Jenrick defends £75k donation after criticising Labour in freebies row

Robert Jenrick has defended being handed a £75,000 donation from a company which had received money from a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), despite criticising Labour over the freebies row.

Questions have been raised over the ultimate source of the funds from The Spott Fitness, which gave Mr Jenrick three separate £25,000 donations in July.

As first reported by Tortoise Media, the company received a loan from a firm based in the BVI.

The Tory leadership contender told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that The Spott Fitness "as I understand it... is a fitness company that operates in the UK", and the donation was "perfectly legal and valid".

Politics Live: Tory leadership candidates faced questions on Sky News

Mr Jenrick spoke to Sky News alongside the three other rivals to replace Rishi Sunak, as the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham kicks off.

During the interviews, Kemi Badenoch said she is a fighter and if someone takes a swing at her "I will swing back".

Meanwhile, Tom Tugendhat defended his "posh boy public school background", saying his military service has given him leadership skills, while former home secretary James Cleverly refused to name any of the previous four Tory prime ministers as being to blame for the party's general election defeat, saying the public "don't like infighting".

Jenrick says donations 'valid'

Asked about the donations from The Spott Fitness, which have been declared on his MPs' register of interests, Mr Jenrick said: "As I understand it, this is a fitness company that operates in the UK.

"It's a perfectly legal and valid donation under British law and we've set it out in the public domain in the way that one does with donations."

Pressed for details on who owns the company and who works for it, the former immigration minister said this would be set out "on Companies House in the normal way" and he has "obviously met people who are involved in the company".

According to Companies House records, The Spott Fitness has no employees and net current liabilities of £330,000. It has two directors - Mark Dembovsky and Benjamin Hodson.

Earlier this year it registered a loan from Centrovalli, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands, though the amount borrowed has not been declared.

Mr Jenrick said he was not criticising Labour for accepting donations, but rather "their rank hypocrisy", after it emerged Sir Keir Starmer accepted over £100,000 in gifts since 2019, while a donor at the centre of the row briefly held a pass to Downing Street.

"They spent years complaining about other political parties and then they've chosen to take off donors and cronies and to give passes to Number 10 in response," Mr Jenrick said.

'Serious questions raised'

However, Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK, said that when companies fund politicians via offshore loans "it raises serious questions about the money's provenance".

He added: "Electoral law was supposed to only allow businesses with a substantive UK presence to make political contributions, yet examples like this show it permits anonymous cash from anywhere in the world into our democracy."

The Conservatives are now gathering in Birmingham since their worst defeat at the ballot box in history at the July general election.

Jenrick backs 'cast iron cap' on migration

Mr Jenrick, currently the frontrunner to replace Mr Sunak, said his party made "serious mistakes" and failed to deliver.

He is pitching himself as a "change" candidate, telling Trevor Phillips he would take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR) in order to get the failed £700m Rwanda asylum scheme up and running, and introduce a cap on migration.

He said this would be different from previous commitments to introduce a limit as the cap would be "legally binding… cast in iron", with the number set "in the tens of thousands or lower".

Badenoch: 'If you swing at me I will swing back'

Mr Jenrick faces competition on the right from Kemi Badenoch, the former equalities minister.

Speaking to Phillips, she defended an Op-ed in The Daily Telegraph in which she claimed there was a rise in the number of migrants coming to the UK who "hate Israel".

She said she was not referring to all Muslim immigrants "but there are some, those who buy into Islamist ideology, political Islam, they do not like Israel and we need to be able to distinguish between the two".

The combative shadow housing secretary also insisted she does not go looking for fights when asked about her rows with the likes of Doctor Who star David Tennant, but that she will stand up for herself.

The North West Essex MP said: "I will not stand there and let people punch me. If you swing at me I will swing back but I don't look for fights."

She added: "I am something that is just different and unique and that is why I stand out in this contest."

'Public don't like bickering'

All four leadership contenders will make their case at the party conference this week, before another round of voting by MPs will reduce them to the final two, which the party membership will then vote on.

Mr Cleverly, who got the least votes of those remaining in the previous round, said his various cabinet roles in the past few years meant he has spent "more time promoting other people's ideas" rather than his own - but that shows he is a "team player".

He declined to name a prime minister who he blamed most for the party's 2024 defeat but added: "I'll tell you what the public told me they didn't like - they didn't like the constant infighting, they didn't like the bickering."

Mr Tugendhat asked the public to judge him on his own record, rather than his public schooling.

"I think that decisions I have made for the last 35 years demonstrate the character that you are looking at," he said.

"I have chosen consistently to serve our country. I have put myself on the frontline in Iraq and Afghanistan."

(c) Sky News 2024: Robert Jenrick defends £75k donation after criticising Labour in freebies row