Police are assessing evidence about donations made to Robert Jenrick after the information was handed over by the Electoral Commission as part of its own investigation.
The former Conservative minister turned Reform UK MP received a total of £100,000 from an indebted company called The Spott Fitness during his failed bid to become Tory leader. As first revealed by Tortoise Media in September 2024, the company accepted a loan from Centrovalli, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands, while reporting debts of £332,000.
More recent filings show the company, which has since been rebranded The Manna Journey, now has net liabilities of £2.2m, of which £1.9m is owed to Centrovalli.
At the time, Labour called on parliament’s standards commissioner to open an investigation and reported the matter to the Electoral Commission.
The entrepreneur Phillip Ullmann, who is not named as a director or owner of the company at Companies House, later said he was behind the donation, but did not say why he did not make the donation personally.
According to the Guardian, however, the Electoral Commission has been investigating claims that £37,500 of the sum donated by The Spott Fitness was ultimately given by the businessman Gary Klopfenstein through the US-based company Innovyz USA. An Electoral Commission spokesperson told The Observer that “evidence of potential offences outside our remit” was handed over to the Metropolitan police in January.
A Met spokesman said: “On Tuesday 6 January we received a referral from the Electoral Commission concerning donations connected to a leadership campaign. This referral is under review and until it has been completed, we’re not in a position to comment further.”
The exact scope of the review, or to whom it relates, remains unclear.
The Conservatives claim the payments from Innovyz were “explicitly labelled as a ‘Robert Jenrick campaign contribution’ and were routed through Spott Fitness” before being paid into the “Newark parliamentary campaign fund”.
The party, which is itself now calling for the standards commissioner to look into the matter, says it was “neither involved nor aware of the acceptance of these funds at the time”.
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Jenrick did not respond to requests for comment.
Back in 2024, a spokesman for The Spott Fitness said: “We’re excited to support leaders like Robert Jenrick who share our vision of businesses having purpose beyond just shareholder profit.” They did not respond to requests for comment this week. Klopfenstein did not respond to requests for comment.
Tim Picton, senior advocacy adviser at Spotlight on Corruption, urged the government to tighten legislation to tackle “questionable political donations”.
“We need to see the government strengthen its requirements on donors to declare that their donations to parties and candidates come from them and them alone. This is the only way to ensure there is a credible criminal deterrent,” he said.
“And it is a no-brainer that donations should only be made from the company profits made in the previous two years if the government is serious about preventing foreign interference.”
Photograph by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images