Political donations: Weirs give SNP further £500,000

Colin and Christine Weir have donated more than four million pounds to the SNP after their Euromillions lottery win in 2011. Picture: Phil Wilkinson

The couple from Largs, who won £161m on the lottery in 2011, handed over £250,000 each - taking their total donations to the party to £4.5m

The Electoral Commission revealed the Nationalists also received £63,000 as a bequest and £23,000 from leading artist Gerard Burns. In total the party raised £596,000 in donations between April 1 and June 30.

A record £40m was donated to 11 political parties in the run-up to the 2017 general election, with the majority going to the Conservatives.

More than half of the total amount of donations was received by the Tories. Picture: Getty Images

Theresa May’s party raked in just under £25m during the period between April 1 and June 30, but this huge financial advantage was not enough to prevent the Tories from losing their parliamentary majority and weakening the prime minister’s authority.

The biggest donor during the three-month period was the trade union Unite, which gave £4,165,935 to Labour.

Jeremy Corbyn’s party also benefited from gifts of £1,253,711 from the GMB union, £1,039,794 from the Communication Workers Union, £922,586 from Unison, and £411,340 from Usdaw.

The Conservatives’ largest donor was construction vehicle manufacturer JCB, which gave £1.5 million. Mark Bamford, the brother of JCB’s chairman Lord Bamford, also gave £750,000.

More than half of the total amount of donations was received by the Tories. Picture: Getty Images

Former Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft contributed £500,000 to the election war-chest - his first donation to the party since a gift from his Bearwood company in 2011.

Hedge fund manager John Armitage gave Mrs May’s party £1.1 million and Addison Lee founder John Griffin £1.033 million - the largest gifts yet given by the two long-standing Tory donors.

John Gore, the theatre producer behind The Book Of Mormon and Phantom Of The Opera, gave the Tories £1 million, entrepreneur David Brownlow gave £600,000.

Bob Posner, director of political finance and regulation said: “The snap general election prompted political parties to raise record-breaking sums in the second quarter of 2017.

“The reporting and publication of this data is key to providing voters with transparency about how political parties financed their general election campaigns.

“Voters can have confidence that, where parties fail to submit information by a statutory deadline and there is no reasonable explanation, we will take a robust approach in dealing with these breaches.”

Total donations:

• Conservative and Unionist Party - £24,840,627

• Labour - £9,492,519

• Liberal Democrats - £4,358,410

• Scottish National Party - £596,000

• Women’s Equality Party - £282,931

• Green Party - £176,363

• UK Independence Party - £156,455

• Co-operative Party - £150,980

• British National Party - £100,000

• The Socialist Party of Great Britain - £26,333

• Plaid Cymru - £5,300