Keir Starmer and top Labour colleagues to stop taking clothes gifts from donors

Keir Starmer and his top team will no longer accept free gifts of clothes from Labour donors, as it emerged that Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner also received donations for work outfits.

After the row over the Labour peer Waheed Alli funding Starmer’s work wardrobe, the prime minister is understood to have decided he will not take donations to pay for clothes in future.

Lord Alli had given him £2,435 worth of glasses and £16,200 worth of work clothing, as well as a stay in a £18m penthouse luxury apartment. Starmer may have broken parliamentary rules in failing to declare clothes bought for his wife by Alli within 28 days of receiving them.

The Guardian can also reveal that Rayner, the deputy prime minister, was given a donation for work clothing from Alli in June. This was declared as a donation in kind from the peer worth £3,550, without saying it was for outfits. She is understood to have contacted the registrar of interests to give a fuller description of the donation.

Reeves has accepted a donation of £7,500 from a donor, Juliet Rosenfeld, since the beginning of last year, which was used to pay for clothing, but it did not amount to a donation in kind.

It is understand that Rayner and Reeves have also decided not to take any future donations of this kind for clothing.

The row over donations from Alli has caused a headache for Starmer after he pledged to run a government of high standards.

The prime minister had taken a defiant line in insisting he had complied with all rules over the declaration of more than £100,000 in free tickets, mostly to football matches, and gifts from Alli.

His decision to no longer accept free clothes comes after pressure on him from several Labour figures.

John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor, said on Friday that early Labour leaders would have been surprised to see Starmer being “expensively clothed by rich sponsors”.

McDonnell, who had the whip suspended for refusing to vote to cut winter fuel payment, said that when Keir Hardie was elected as the first Labour MP, he went to parliament in his working man’s tweed suit.

He said Hardie was not “expensively clothed by rich sponsors because as a matter of principle he refused to ape the Tories and Liberals in their expensive frock coats and silk top hats”.

“The early leaders of the Labour party must be spinning in their graves at the behaviour of some holding positions in the leading echelons of the Labour party today,” McDonnell added.

Writing for the Guardian, McDonnell also hit out at the “poor political judgment and the failure to control the self-serving arrogance of the heavies that now control much of the party machine, including the leader’s office”.

McDonnell, who served under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, said previous Labour leaders would have turned their minds to implementing socialist policies rather than bickering over their own pay.

Harriet Harman, the former interim Labour leader, had also suggested Starmer should admit accepting the freebies was a mistake instead of trying to justify it.

The Labour veteran told a Sky News podcast: “You can either double down on it and try and justify it or you can just say it was probably a misstep, if I had my time again I wouldn’t do it and therefore I’m going to auction for charity or something.”

Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, who had the Labour whip returned earlier this year, said on Friday: “I don’t always agree with Harriet Harman but she is right on this.”

Meanwhile, Stephen Flynn, the SNP Westminster Leader, said Starmer had shown “shockingly bad judgment” by taking more than £100,000 of freebies while “imposing austerity cuts on the rest of us”.

The furore over the freebies has added to tensions in Labour, which was also struck by a row about a salary of £170,000 given to Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray. Junior advisers have been furious that she is being paid more than the prime minister when their salaries have been cut.

Starmer has defended Gray and also sought to downplay his freebies, saying everything has been declared in line with the rules of parliament.

Overall, Starmer has accepted more than £100,000 in free tickets to football matches, concerts and gifts – more than any other MP in the last parliament, and any other major party leader.

The prime minister has been facing questions over the potential conflict of interest created by accepting so many free tickets from Premier League clubs when the industry is lobbying against his plans for a football regulator.

One person involved in the formation of the regulator said there had been a huge amount of attempted lobbying by football clubs towards politicians and officials as they sought to water down the regulation.