Gary Lubner: Keir Starmer’s new South African mega-donor

A South African car glass tycoon is set to become one of Labour’s biggest donors, after it was revealed Gary Lubner could give as much as £5 million to the party ahead of the next election.

According to Electoral Commission figures, the 64-year-old, who stepped down from his role as chief executive of Autoglass parent company Belron in March, donated £500,000 to Labour in the first quarter of the year, with significantly more expected over the next 12 to 18 months.

The son of Jewish refugees, Lubner told the Financial Times (FT) he has been impressed by Keir Starmer’s mission to rid Labour of anti-Semitism and he hoped his financial help would put the party in power “for a long time”.

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Who is Gary Lubner?

Born in apartheid-era South Africa, where his Jewish grandparents had fled in the early 20th century to escape the Jewish pogroms in Russia, Lubner trained as a chartered accountant before completing an MBA at London Business School in 1991. In 2000 he followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by becoming chief executive of Belron, the world’s largest auto glass company, which owns UK brand Autoglass. By 2015, it had around 2,400 branches across 33 countries, with annual revenues of around £3 billion. He stepped down from the position in March this year.

Speaking to the FT, Lubner said he recognised his donations would put him in the spotlight, “an unfamiliar experience for the 64-year-old who has shied away from publicity throughout his career”, said the paper.

For someone estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, Lubner has a relatively low public profile. An industry interview from 2004 described him as looking “like he works hard to look just like any other basic buttoned-down managerial type”. “But a conversation with Gary Lubner quickly shows you he could definitely hold the title as one of the sharpest minds in the AGR business worldwide and would have had quite a career in it, even if it hadn’t been a company his father ran. Dad and all his history aside, Gary Lubner is anything but an ordinary manager.”

A life-long West Ham United fan, he has three children.

Why is he backing Labour?

Politicised in South Africa after being conscripted into the police force where he saw the brutality of the apartheid regime at first hand, he told the South African Power 100 list in 2013: “I have always believed really strongly and it’s been a family belief that you have an obligation to all the communities you work with. It comes from a fundamental belief that businesses do not exist in a vacuum. They exist in a community. We happen to be born into a particular situation. So we always felt that there is an obligation, as individuals and as a business, to give back to communities less well-off than us.”

He has spoken of how he was “horrified” by the “cancer of antisemitism” in the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and how his youngest son was personally “abused, pilloried and attacked” while he was a student activist. He said it was the “long list of Tory failures in the last 13 years” that made him committed to bankrolling the opposition, with Brexit being “top of the list”.

One of his first donations paid the salary for a member of staff in the office of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and “people with knowledge of his intentions expect his total donations before the election to top £5 million”, reported the FT.

South Africa’s News 24 said a donation of this size would mean the “largely unknown” Lubner is now emerging as a “key player” in the UK’s next general election.

While providing a huge boost to the party’s coffers it is not thought Lubner will have an official role in either the campaign or in government if Labour wins, The Times reported. Nor is he interested in a peerage, having previously suggested the House of Lords should be abolished.

“His most valuable contribution to the cause may not be financial at all, but his ability to help persuade other significant players to follow his lead and back Keir Starmer’s bid for power,” said the i news site.

“Gary is one person to keep an eye on,” a Labour source said. “He’s going to be playing a significant role in the near future.”