Party leader claims proposed new retrospective laws are unfair and Reform would retaliate with a crackdown on union funding if elected

Good morning. Ministers already think that the new laws on political donations, as set out in the version of the representation of the people bill which left the Commons earlier this month, will be enough to block some or all of the donations worth £72m to Reform UK announced at the weekend. But they are still planning further amendments to the legislation, when peers debate their own amendments to the bill, to make the restrictions even tighter. Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Kiran Stacey have the details here in our overnight splash.

Kiran and Henry Dyer also have written a good explainer about the rules.

The Unite union alone has given the Labour party over £50m over the course of the last few years. They’ve got the Employment Rights Act, not to mention big pay rises for bus drivers. If anybody is giving money to do political bidding, it’s the trade unions.

So I would just warn the Labour party here and now: If you try and ban our donors, we in government would certainly ban funding from the trade unions. I don’t want to go down that route. But it’s something we would be prepared to do.