Reform UK spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe has described a Labour event with Jonathan Reynolds as looking like ‘cash for access’.
Speaking to GB News, Ann Widdecombe said: “That one can be summed up simply as cash for access. I mean, that’s what it comes down to.
“You can talk to the business secretary if you really, desperately want it, as long as you pay for the privilege.
“But these things, there’s a very, very thin line between what is classed as acceptable and what isn’t. I think, without knowing the detail of it, this looks at first sight, at any rate, as if it was straightforwardly cash for access.
“I doubt if anybody’s going to resign. I mean, Starmer hasn’t resigned, I don’t see how he could reasonably ask his underlings to resign. I should think this will be a government that is very short of resignations indeed.
“Usually, if these meetings are sensibly organised, and very often, they’re organised by the businesses themselves with no question of donating money to any party. And it’s supposed to be a two way process, and government will say what it’s thinking about and it will take an input from business. But of course you then run into trouble.
“Let’s not forget Tony Blair and Formula One when suddenly Formula One was exempted from a piece of legislation that applied to everybody else.
“There’s always that very famous maxim that you must not only be above suspicion, you must be seen to be above suspicion. And once you do something that can be represented or even misrepresented as an absence of probity, then you’ve got a very big problem.
“But I must say, Why would anybody pay £15,000 for a photograph? I used to get them with Mrs. Thatcher for free. I get them with Nigel Farage for free. Why would anybody being paying to be photographed?”
Discussing Lord Alli’s donations, Ann Widdecombe said: “I think [Lord Alli] wants the Prime Minister’s ear, and I think he wants to keep the Prime Minister’s ear. He’s already in the Lords. He’s already very wealthy, hasn’t got anything going on on those sorts of fronts.
“But I think there are people who like to have influence, and I think he is one of them. And the question is, does he have influence in exchange for all these donations and gifts. Does he have influence? That’s the big question.”
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