A multimillionaire former donor to the Conservative Party says he stopped giving them money and defected to Labour because he felt they were “riven with arrogance and complacency”.
Tycoon Gareth Quarry told Sky News’ Beth Rigby Interviews programme that he came to the “gradual realisation that inequality in this country has got evermore marked” and he “couldn’t just sit by being in a very privileged position”.
The 63-year-old businessman has recently donated £100,000 to Labour and joined the party as a member, having previously given tens of thousands of pounds to the Conservatives under David Cameron and Theresa May.
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Mr Quarry said the turning point was Boris Johnson and “the realisation that some politicians are only in it for themselves – personal aggrandisement, personal career advancement, what’s going to get me into Chequers and Number 10 the quickest”.
In his first TV interview since joining Labour, he said: “At difficult times you have to put the interests of the country first.
“So I had to therefore do a very radical thing, which will no doubt make me a pariah in a number of areas, but you’ve got to do the right thing.”
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Mr Quarry, a Remain supporter, also attacked former prime minister David Cameron, saying he was “without question” complacent about the gravity of calling the EU referendum as he thought he could win it.
He said: “The Tory party is riven with arrogance and complacency.
“I sat in rooms with the top group of donors.
“I’m a boy from Bedford, I felt totally out of it. There were people running enormous great companies. There were people who’ve been born with very silver spoons in their mouths. That’s not who I am.”
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Explaining his donations to the Conservative Party under Mr Cameron, Mr Quarry said he was “concerned in the run-up to Brexit” and wanted to “get in the room” to make an argument.
He said that invitations to events “were linked to the amount you gave a year” and he attended lunches and dinners with cabinet ministers and the former PM.
However, he said he “didn’t see it as paying for access or influence” and that he believed “in what the party and wing of the party was trying to do”.
Conservatives ‘have veered off to the right’
On his move to joining Labour, Mr Quarry said the party under Sir Keir Starmer “is a left of centre alliance”, whereas the Tories under Liz Truss “have veered off to the right”.
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He said he would have made a “fortune” from the prime minister’s “farcical” tax-slashing mini-budget but he “did not want that”.
“If I can’t pay more than my fair share as a rich guy then, what hope is there.
“I have to carry a greater burden on my back, because there are people out there who over the last 15 years have not seen any change to their lives, and they are in despair.”
The father-of-four insisted his switch to Labour was “not such a dramatic change” as he has “always believed society should be fair”.
He said his donation to Labour, made jointly with his wife Jill, was his way of “giving back to the country” and he wants nothing from it “other than a right-thinking government”.
