Nick Clegg bankrolls Lib Dem fightback in old Sheffield seat

Nick Clegg has been pumping tens of thousands of pounds into his old seat of Sheffield Hallam in an attempt to fortify the Liberal Democrats for a direct fight with a Labour incumbent — the only seat in Britain where the two will go head to head.

Clegg has been giving steadily since leaving frontline politics in 2017, but people close to the former Lib Dem leader — who is now a senior executive at Facebook owner Meta — say that he has “stepped up” these donations recently to provide larger, monthly payments.

Though the Lib Dems are hoping to take up to 20 seats from the ruling Conservative party in the July 4 election, the contest in the wealthy Sheffield constituency sees them trying to unseat a Labour incumbent, just as Sir Keir Starmer’s party surges in the polls.

The Financial Times spoke to more than a dozen members of the public in various areas of the constituency and did not find one that was planning to vote Lib Dem.

Clegg acknowledges the Lib Dems face an “uphill battle” to retake the seat, “given how much wind Labour has in its sails”, one person close to him added.

He has given £30,000 to the Lib Dems in Sheffield since he stood down in 2017, including £15,000 in 2019 and £5,000 in 2022, according to data from the Electoral Commission. His most recent donations have yet to show up on the commission’s database.

Clegg, who was also deputy prime minister in David Cameron’s coalition government, lost the seat in 2017 to Labour, which currently has a majority of just 712.

After leaving Westminster he moved to California, though he splits his time between the US west coast and London, which he uses as a base for travelling to Asia and continental Europe in his current role as Meta’s head of global affairs.

The battle lines in the Sheffield seat — which was once a Tory stronghold — are distinct from those that are dominating the national fight, with issues such as the conflict in Gaza taking a more prominent position in the campaign.

The Lib Dems’ pitch is directed largely at the 15,000 people who voted Tory here in 2019.

“The next government is going to be a Labour government,” conceded Lib Dem candidate Shaffaq Mohammed. But “if it’s going to be as strong a Labour government as the polls suggest, we might actually need an alternative voice in this region,” he said, sitting drinking a smoothie in a large, bustling park in the constituency.

The seat’s former Lib Dem representative Richard Allan was the only MP from the city to speak out against the Iraq war in the early 2000s, he points out.

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In nearby Darnall, Labour’s current position on Gaza saw it lose a council seat in May’s elections, one of dozens it lost to pro-Palestine candidates.

While Starmer has been criticised by some supporters for only recently supporting a ceasefire, the Lib Dems called for one back in November.

Yet Labour’s Olivia Blake, who was elected in Sheffield Hallam in 2019, downplayed the significance of the conflict on voting intentions.

“Everything we’re looking at is telling us we’re going to win and I’m very confident,” she said. For all their optimism, the Lib Dems were not coming up on the doorstep. “The question that people want to answer is who’s going to be in Number 10.”

David Mason, a 54-year-old owner of an Italian deli, has voted for both Labour and the Lib Dems in the past, but this time he wants “Labour to get it”. “They have a good lead in the polls” and it’s “time for a breath of fresh air”. 

The most pressing national issue for him was the need to improve Britain’s relationship with the EU. “Nobody’s saying anything on this, they’re not sticking their head above the parapet.”

Further north in the seat, sitting in his house on the outskirts of the Peak District national park, David Stanley, a 50-year-old marketing manager, said he was not “enamoured” with the direction of the Labour party he had supported his whole life. 

“The positioning of Labour seems to be ‘we’re not the Conservatives’ and frankly I don’t think that’s up to the scale of the challenge,” he said, even though he conceded he was still likely to vote for the party.

Down the road, in a large house with three cars in the driveway, 38-year-old medical doctor Shorav Munjal said his vote would go to Rishi Sunak, who was “a bit more likeable than Starmer, and younger”, and was Indian like him, which was “another plus”.

“He’s restored the economy now, it’s doing well despite everything that’s happened,” he said.

He had not, he admitted, given any thought to the Lib Dems for the general election.