James Cleverly Has Refused To Rule Out Accepting Cash From Race Row Donor If He Becomes Tory Leader

James Cleverly has refused to rule out accepting more cash from a Tory donor who said Diane Abbott “should be shot” if he becomes the party’s new leader.

The former home secretary is one of the four remaining candidates in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak.

It emerged last week that the Conservatives had accepted another £5 million from Frank Hester, taking the total he has given the party to £20m.

The Guardian reported in March that Hester had made the comments about Abbott, parliament’s first black female MP, in 2019.

He later said he was “sorry” for the “rude” comments.

On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on BBC1 this morning, Cleverly was asked directly whether the party would accept more money from him in the future under his leadership.

He replied: “He apologised, he admitted that what he said was completely wrong, and the reason he donated to the Conservative Party’s general election campaign was to protect the British people from the Labour government.”

Kuenssberg told him: “That’s not my question. My question was would you, if you win, accept donations from him in the future?”

Cleverly said: “The point I’m making is that he donated to our campaign so that we could protect the British people from the Labour government who are now taking money off pensioners, whose own donors are being given passes to No10, whose own donors are being brought into the Labour government.”

Kuenssberg replied: “You’re sitting here saying you’d run a different Tory Party, you’d be a different kind of leader.

“Would that be one of the things you would change. Can you give us a clear answer? Would you, if you win, accept more donations from Frank Hester?”

Dodging the question again, Cleverly said: “He has been a donor to the party, whether he is in the future, I don’t know.”