Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧@JChimirie66677
A Charity Whose Trustees Read Like a Labour Honours List Is Trying to Win a By-Election.
Hope Not Hate is a registered charitable trust. Charities operating in the political arena are bound by a simple and unambiguous rule. They must stress their independence. They must not encourage support for any particular party or candidate. They must not give funding to political parties or politicians. These are not guidelines. They are legal obligations enforced by the Charity Commission.
Nigel Farage has written to the Charity Commission citing what he describes as a clear breach of those obligations in the Makerfield by-election constituency ahead of the June 18th poll.
The facts documented in his letter are precise. Hope Not Hate sent leaflets to addresses in Makerfield encouraging voters to join the local fightback against Reform and scan a QR code to participate. The leaflet was promoted by Nick Lowles on behalf of Hope Not Hate Limited, a private company. That private company received £787,858 in grants from Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust in 2024, representing almost the entirety of the charitable trust's expenditure for the year. The action apparently changed nothing.
The trustees of Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust and the directors and former directors of Hope Not Hate Limited include Frances O'Grady, former TUC General Secretary and Labour Peer. Gurinder Josan CBE, current Chair of HUCT and Labour MP. Jon Cruddas, former Labour MP. Alison Phillips, Chief Executive of LabourTogether, a Labour supporting think tank. Ruth Lauren Anderson, Labour Peer. Anna Turley, former Labour MP and Chair of the Labour Party.
A charitable trust whose trustees are overwhelmingly current or former Labour politicians is funding a private company to distribute leaflets in a by-election constituency explicitly targeting Reform and backing the Labour candidate. The Charity Commission's own guidance states that a charity must steer clear of explicitly comparing its views with those of political parties or candidates taking part in an election. The leaflet's footer, to join the local fightback against Reform, does precisely that.
This is not the first time the Charity Commission has been required to intervene. It opened a compliance case in July 2025 and concluded it in January 2026, declaring itself satisfied that the charity had taken sufficient steps to distinguish itself from Hope Not Hate Limited. The case was closed. Within months the same funding arrangement appears to have resumed with charitable funds flowing into electoral leaflets in a specific by-election constituency. The Commission closed the case. The behaviour apparently continued.
The Makerfield by-election is the vehicle through which Andy Burnham intends to return to Westminster and challenge for the Labour leadership. Reform took every council seat in the area at the May local elections with 46.2 percent of the vote. The stakes could not be higher. And a charity whose trustees read like a Labour Party honours list is spending charitable funds to help deliver the result.
The Charity Commission has 22 days to act before the votes are cast on June 18th. It has already investigated this arrangement once and the funding continued unchanged. Charitable money is being spent to influence a by-election that could determine who leads the country. The regulator that failed to stop it in January faces a simple question. Will it act before the result or after it no longer matters?
"The leaflet was promoted by Nick Lowles on behalf of Hope Not Hate Limited, a private company."