NEW and tougher rules to drive the “corrupting influence of dark money and wealth donors” on Britain’s politics was demanded by the Scottish Greens today. 

The British Parliament’s committee on standards in public life recommended back in 2011 that a £10,000 a year cap on individual donations be enforced and it subsequently called for a series of further reforms to increase transparency.

But more than a decade later, the then Boris Johnson-led Tory party still garnered more than a quarter of all its donations from just 10 wealthy backers.

Now after a fortnight which has seen Reform UK leader Nigel Farage going public on his “ongoing negotiations” with billionaire Trump-appointee Elon Musk to funnel cash into his party, the Scottish Greens echoed the calls of the head of the Electoral Commission Vijay Rangarajan for party funding rules to be tightened up to “protect the electoral system from foreign interference.”

Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay said: “We cannot allow our politics to be run by the rich for the rich, but that is what has happened.

“If we are to have a fairer playing field in the long run then we need to move to a fair system of state funding of political parties.

“But that should not stop us from taking important steps here and now.

“Unless we want our politics to become even more detached from our communities, we need far stricter limits on donations and campaign spending, and much tougher transparency and enforcement rules.

“There should also be a ban on the scandal of major donors being appointed to the House of Lords.

“The super rich have already got far too much influence over our politics.

“In an age of tech billionaires and dark money, change can’t come soon enough.”