Conservative tycoon Lord Peter Cruddas and hotel mogul Sir Rocco Forte say they won’t be donating to the Conservative Party again unless things change.
Speaking to GB News, Sir Rocco – who founded the world famous chain of Rocco Forte Hotels – said the party currently doesn’t stand for anything he believes in.
Asked if he would give them cash again, he told Camilla Tominey:
“No. What’s the point of having a Conservative government which is following policies which have been followed for the last 15 years and haven’t delivered good growth?
“We have a sort of social democratic government in parliament. We don’t have a Conservative government and there’s no one who really believes in driving the economy and changing the system to do that.
“Reform UK is sort of a protest party which will take votes from the Conservative Party and if it’s allowed to grow to the level the Brexit party did, it could force the Conservatives into a different direction.”
Sir Rocco revealed he has yet to consider donating money to Reform UK but reiterated he wouldn’t currently be giving any more to the Conservative Party.
Sir Rocco also spoke out against Chancellor Jeremy Hunt whilst on the show saying: “I’m not a fan at all. Everything is being blamed on Liz Truss. The thing that spooked the markets, more than anything else, was the subsidy on energy costs, which then was forecast to be 150 billion. We’ve continued with subsidising energy costs and it hasn’t cost anything like that. It coincided with the Bank of England, maybe on purpose, announcing quantitative tightening on the same day as the mini-budget. Obviously, she (Liz Truss) rushed but things should have been taken much more quietly and steadily.”
The 78-year-old donated £100,000 to back Boris Johnson in the 2019 election. Sir Rocco also previously paid for a lavish party at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair to celebrate Mr Johnson’s victory in the Tory leadership contest. Sir Rocco told GB News he “didn’t regret” giving Boris Johnson money as he “got Brexit to happen.”
Sir Rocco follows multi-millionaire Conservative tycoon Lord Peter Cruddas who last year stopped donating to the party after Boris Johnson was “undemocratically ousted from office.”
Lord Cruddas, one of Britain’s richest men and a former Conservative treasurer, announced he will not give donations to the Conservative Party again until democracy is restored.
In an interview with CIBUK last month, Lord Cruddas also said he would not donate to the party under its current leadership.
The Tory Peer told CIBUK’s Chairman Leigh Evans:
“At the moment if they rang me up and asked me I’d say, no! I think I as a member feel disenfranchised from the process of the way our leader was elected. Also the way the manifesto is being ignored by the current leadership.”
Lord Cruddas added:
“I’m still a loyal Conservative. If you look at my voting record in the House of Lords [it] is 100 percent in favour of the Conservative government.
“I would donate to the Conservative Party tomorrow if it reverted back to being a centre right party. Unless they do that I can’t personally donate to them.”
Lord Cruddas has since launched, together with David Campbell-Bannerman and Claire Bullivant / Conservative Post, the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) which is aiming to restore party democracy and is set to hold its own conference in Bournemouth in May.
Source: GB News / CIBUK
