Sky-High Spending: How Political Spending Laws Harm Public Trust

The recent by-election in Clacton-on-Sea, with its 34 candidates and metre-long ballot paper, was an extreme example of a major issue in UK elections. Having campaign spending limits so high that only a very few can get close to them only exacerbates the current crisis in voter trusts.

The Unattainable Heights of Political Spending

In a parliamentary general election, campaign spending is split into two pots: one for the political party and one for the candidate. If you are standing for a rich party, you benefit from both pots. If you are not, you don’t.

In a by-election every candidate gets one spending pot with an upper limit of £180,000. Simple. Fair. Yes?

Or is it so high as to be almost meaningless in our current democracy? Worse, does it actually harm our democracy?

Political Party Income Just Isn’t that Large (For Most)

How many political parties could afford to support a by-election candidate to the tune of £180,000? 

Not many.

Of the 12 political parties who stood candidates in Clacton (the Official Monster Raving Loony Party stood three, showing that they had the measure of the situation), only two reported an income of over £180,000 in 2025. Three reported having no income at all (one was registered recently and has not yet needed to submit accounts). 

Here is what their income looked like compared to that £180,000 cap (the blue line). Reform UK’s income was around £10m but if I include that in the chart it becomes impossible to see the lower income points.

Data from the Electoral Commission

In fact, of the 396 political parties registered at the time of writing, 335 reported income below £180,000 in 2025. That’s 84.6%. Of those, 90 parties (23% of the total) recorded an income of precisely £0.

Maybe this is all OK if the candidates spend whatever cash they have on campaign material that gives the electorate important information to help them decide who to vote for. 

Well, that’s not the public’s opinion. 

Electoral Commission research shows that in 2026, 72% of people thought that misinformation and disinformation is a problem in political information. The same research showed that in the same year 52% of people disagreed that political information is trustworthy. In both cases, the percentage is creeping upwards over time.

Let’s try another angle. Maybe even one or two candidates spending vast sums on campaigning will inspire people to actually vote (for or against them depending on what they thought of the material), increasing the turnout and thus participation in democracy. 

Evidence from UK parliamentary elections suggests otherwise. 

Spending by political parties on ‘unsolicited material to electors’(a legally mandated category parties must use in their political spending report) in UK parliamentary general elections has trended upwards from £2m in 2001 to £25m in 2024.

Data from the Electoral Commission

Turnout, on the other hand, has shown a gentle increase if you squint and ignore the last two general elections when (a) it was too cold to go out and then (b) no one could remember who the PM was that week anyway.

Data from the UK Parliament

Not so much a debate between correlation and causation as there being nothing at all to debate.

Donation Complication 

Of course, candidates could get donations from other sources to boost their political spending power. But as there is no mandated central database of candidate donations and spending at by-elections or other elections (hmm,. there’s an idea) we can’t analyse that data..

Besides, if a candidate for one political party has to source their own donations while another does not and can concentrate on their campaign, the playing field is already skewed. 

I accept that Clacton was an unusual by-election. but that £180,000 spending limit seems beyond most parties even in a UK parliamentary general election. How many parties spent over £180,000 campaigning at the 2024 general election? The answer is fewer than ten.

A Radical Reduction in Political Spending: For Fairness and Quality

Our democracy is not, in my view, for sale. But the unnecessarily high political spending limits are accessible to only a very small minority of political parties and their candidates. A radical reduction in these limits would have many benefits. 

• Creating a fairer race between all party candidates and independents.

• Incentivising the production of high quality campaign material.

• Reducing the need to chase big donations to fund big campaigns.

The Representation of the People Bill, due back in the House in September, is an opportunity to bring political campaign spending limits down from their current heights. Currently, this proposal is not on the agenda. For the sake of our democracy, it needs to be included.