The billionaire Blairite funding Progress, the “party within a party” behind the plot to break Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us ….” - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

For democratic socialists, this really could be the best of times. We may be only months away from a general election, with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to elect a democratic socialist as a Labour prime minister.

It may, of course, also be the worst of times, thanks to the dark politics of foolishness. If the attempted coup against Jeremy Corbyn succeeds — long-planned, but incompetently executed — then the spring of hope will quickly turn to an endless winter of despair for working-class people who have suffered because leaders of all parties have consistently chosen austerity rather than prosperity, greater iniquity rather than greater equality, war rather than peace. In short, they have shored up capitalism instead of pursued socialism.

All this is now up in the air. We have everything before us. Or, if Jeremy Corbyn is bullied to breaking point, we have nothing before us.

As the plotters take the weekend off to re-group and try to find a way of deposing our leader without asking for our permission, I wanted to investigate who is helping to fund the individuals and organisations behind this coup.

First, though, let me make one point on which surely all members can agree: we entrusted the leadership of the Labour Party to an individual for whom 60% of us voted. It is our leadership, nobody else’s. It was entrusted to Jeremy Corbyn, but it is not his to own; it is to hold in trust and not cede away without our approval. I am sure Jeremy agrees — even despite the despicable treatment he is suffering at the hands of 170 members.

Peter Kyle, our MP in Hove, has recently insisted the fumbled coup was “not planned”; a lot had happened “since the weekend”, he tweeted. This is “not ideological”, he added.

It is about competence, he said. This from a man long associated with the increasingly-incompetent manoeuvrings of Progress, the party within the Labour Party. (Mr Kyle is a high-profile speaker at Progress events. As is Councillor Warren Morgan, leader of the Labour Group on Brighton and Hove City Council).

Ironically, both Mr Kyle and Cllr Morgan are attending the Progress Party’s local government conference on Saturday, July 9 — the day when 5,000+ members of Brighton, Hove and District Labour Party have the chance to vote for a new leadership locally.

Cllr Morgan will speak about how Labour can prioritise spending during cuts.

You may have heard about the Progress Party, without really knowing too much about it. It doesn’t really advertise itself to rank-and-file Labour members.

Yet, with just 2,500 members, it describes itself as “Labour’s new mainstream”. That’s right, despite spending more than £5 million in recent years, it has attracted only 2,500 members — and only about 4,500 subscribers to its monthly magazine.

Instead, it has focused more on individual politicians whose rising careers it has promoted relentlessly and repeatedly, at conferences, in print, online, and — crucially — on the ground during election campaigns. As a result, it now has significant influence over a relatively small number of MPs and councillors whom it has supported or promoted for many years. As a result, its members are increasingly influential and prominent as they climb the greasy poles of politics, nationally and locally.

A crucial character in the growth of Progress — which is incorporated as a limited company whose principal activity is to act as “a political consultancy” — is 75-year-old Etonian Lord David Sainsbury of Turville, the billionaire chair of the Sainsbury’s supermarket company founded by his great-grandfather.

A Labour Party member in the 1960s, Lord Sainsbury was one of the high-profile founders in 1981 of the Social Democratic Party, to which he was by far the biggest donor. After this failed political project, he rejoined Labour in 1996; within a year, as Tony Blair became prime minister, he entered the House of Lords.

He went on to become the “unsackable” longest-serving Labour minister — behind only Blair and Gordon Brown.

In July 2006, however, he became the first government minister to be questioned by police in the “cash-for-peerages” inquiry. Within four months, he resigned as Science Minister, stating he wanted to focus on business and charity work. He denied the two events were related.

Since 2004, Lord David Sainsbury has declared to the Electoral Commission a total of £14,480,011.10 in political donations — of which more than a fifth (21%) has gone to Progress):

· £8,366,808 to the Labour Party centrally (the last — and smallest — donation being in April 2010);

· £3,062,500 to Progress Ltd (quarterly payments, at the rate of about £65,000 every three months, since June 2004);

· £1,348,953 to Movement for Change;

· £467,9000 to The Campaign for British Influence in Europe Limited (all of it since March 2014);

· £291,349 to Policy Network and Communications Ltd (in 2013 and 2014);

· £250,000 to Scientists for EU Limited;

· £159,000 to Best For Our Future Ltd;

· £120,000 to DDB UK Limited;

· £117,500 to European Movement of the UK Ltd;

· £95,000 to Michelle Ovens Ltd;

· £81,000 to Constituency Labour Parties (Tower Hamlets, Enfield Southgate, Milton Keynes North and South, Stoke-on-Trent Central, Cambridge, and Wycombe);

· £75,000 to We Are Europe;

· £45,000 to individual MPs (the most recent being £20,000 to Tristram Hunt, the MP for Stoke-on-Trent Centrtal, in December last year; donations to Alan Johnson and David Lammy were in 2005–2007).

[An aside: Speaking to a Progress rally, Tristram Hunt made a joke about being delighted to be there, because “you might be an unaccountable faction dominated by a secretive billionaire, but you are our unaccountable faction dominated by a secretive billionaire”. Not so funny now, of course!]

Lord Sainsbury donated £390,000 to Progress and the Movement for Change between December 2011 and April 2013, when he was not on the electoral register in the United Kingdom, which is contrary to electoral law, As a result, both Progress and the Movement for Change were fined by the Electoral Commission.

Lord Sainsbury is not the only donor to Progress.

Progress is classed as a membership association and required to report all donations over £7,500 to the commission. Since 2004, it has reported as donors (*sponsors):

· £125,000 from Lord Michael Montague (via a trust he created before his death in 1999);

· £49,999 from Sir Frank Lowe (the advertising agency executive);

· *£39,630 from The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.

· *£34,662 from Pfizer;

· £20,000 from Lord Sushantha Kumar Bhattacharyya;

· £12,000 from Sovereign Strategy (a lobbying consultancy chaired by a former Labour MEP) — £12,000;

· £10,000 from Jon Mendelsohn (a director and former treasurer of Progress director);

· *£5,875 from Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd;

· £5,000 from Lord Patrick Carter.

According to the Progress website, the organisation had an income of £429,886 in the 2014 financial year. According to the Electoral Commission, in the calendar year of 2014, Lord Sainsbury donated £260,000 — the equivalent of 60% of its annual income.

The billionaire is also a signifcant donor to Labour Friends of Israel (LfI), many of whose officers and parliamentary supporters have close links with Progress — not least John Woodcock, the MP for Barrow and Furness, one of seven LfI officers and former chair of Progress.

Mr Woodcock — along with Wes Streeting, the MP for Ilford North, who worked for Progress for a year after graduating — has been vocal in the “anti-semitism” smear campaign of recent months.

Separately, according to latest figures, Britain Stronger in Europe — the official Remain campaign — raised £6.88 million in the 10 weeks to April 21. Of which more than a third (33.4%) came from Lord Sainsbury.

It is perhaps not surprising that many Labour MPs of the current generation wanted the UK to remain in the European Union, support the Friends of Israel, and are right wing in the tradition of Tony Blair. After all, Lord Sainsbury has been doing his best to strike a killer blow at democratic socialism for more than 20 years.

Only this time he is trying to do it not with the SDP, but with Progress. This may be the best of times, or the worst of times. Let’s make sure it is members of the Labour Party and not the Progress Party who decide.