But party officials have refused to confirm Mr Taylor’s identity for several weeks despite repeated requests from journalists. Yesterday, after The Independent said it intended to publish details of Mr Taylor’s identity – without the party’s confirmation – Labour released a statement from Mr Taylor confirming he was the source of the funds.
A party spokesman said it had not previously released the information out of respect for his privacy.
But the case highlights the continuing lack of transparency surrounding party finances. Parties are required to provide details of all their donors who have given more than £7,500 – but only the name of the donor is made public, making it hard to identify individuals who have a common name.
It is also embarrassing for Mr Miliband because he has been a frequent critic of the Conservatives’ reliance on money from hedge funds to pay for their campaigning. A week after Mr Miliband met Mr Taylor in 2013 and after Labour had accepted £200,000 from the businessman, the Labour leader attacked David Cameron in Prime Minister’s Questions for being a party funded by hedge funds while Labour got its funds from “ordinary people up and down this country” paying “6p a week in affiliation fees”.
He has also accused the Conservative Party of being financially dependent on “Mayfair hedge funds”. Mr Taylor’s hedge fund has its headquarters in Mayfair.
In a statement released to The Independent last night, Mr Taylor said he was a “proud” Labour supporter – who happened to work at a hedge fund.
“My dad was a local Labour councillor for over 30 years and my mum rose to be the headteacher of a comprehensive school,” he wrote.
“They taught me daily about fairness. That is why, as someone who is lucky enough to be paid very well for doing a job I love – and who has always been UK domiciled and fully pays UK tax on all of my income, whatever its source – it is natural for me to support the political party and the party leader, in Ed Miliband, who are patently committed to this principle.”
The story emerged after the Bureau of Investigative Journalism investigated the source of cash donations given to Labour from outside trade unions. It identified Mr Taylor as having made eight donations to Labour totalling £591,000 since 2012.
The bureau found a number of individuals named “Martin Taylor” whose backgrounds suggested they might have the resources to donate more than half-a-million pounds. Eventually it established the most likely candidate to be a Martin Taylor who worked for a hedge fund called Nevsky Capital and until 2010 managed a $3.5bn (£2.3bn) fund which invested in emerging markets. He now manages a smaller hedge fund for Nevsky.
But when the Bureau contacted Mr Taylor he did not respond to phone messages or to a personal letter sent to his home address. A Labour spokesman also refused to confirm his identity to the bureau.
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Labour initially refused to confirm Mr Taylor’s identity to The Independent but when the paper separately established that he was the source of the funds and told the businessman of its intention to publish the information, the party contacted the paper and said it would release an article for publication. In it, Mr Taylor states there is no “mystery” over his identity. “This ‘Martin Taylor’ is me. I am a born and bred Londoner, who also happens to be a hedge fund manager. And I am proud to support the Labour Party.”
He said he backed Labour because it was important that “everyone should contribute to society and that those who are lucky enough to earn a lot should contribute more than others.
“When times were good governments endeavoured to reduce taxes for everyone and also increase spending on health, education and the elderly. But now in harder times the current Government has cut taxes for the richest by reducing the top rate of income tax from 50 per cent to 45 per cent while cutting spending elsewhere to fund it.”
Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has said that Labour should have been willing to match its “rhetoric on transparency about party funding with the appropriate actions as far as its own donations are concerned”.
He said: “In the example of Martin Taylor they are open to the charge of hypocrisy.” He added that the episode underlined the need for wider reform of the system of party funding. “The recent events surrounding donations to political parties suggest a review of the current legislation is long overdue,” he said. “There is a need to tighten the rules to ensure the fullest transparency about donors who are making donations over a given sum.”
A Labour source said: “We are grateful to people from all walks of life who support the Labour Party and our better plan. Unlike David Cameron and the Conservatives who increasingly rely on the money of an exclusive group of donors – the same people who they have rewarded with tax breaks – Ed Miliband will enter Downing Street owing nothing to anybody.”
Martin Taylor’s full article is available to read online at www.independent.co.uk/voices
Double standards: Labour on hedge funds
* "This is the difference: this is a PM who won’t tackle tax avoidance for the simple reason that too many of his friends would get caught in the net. They’re the party of Mayfair hedge funds and Monaco tax avoiders" (Ed Miliband – 4 February)
* "If the Prime Minister wants to talk about party funding, let us talk about a party bought and sold by the hedge funds and a man who appointed a self-declared tax avoider as his treasurer" (Ed Miliband – 25 February)
* "The current Conservative leadership has become the political wing of offshore hedge funds" (Ed Miliband – 7 February)
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