THE Conservative Party is sitting on an extra £5 million from controversial donor Frank Hester than has been revealed until now, it has been reported.

On Thursday, Tortoise Media revealed that Hester had given the Tories £15m in the last year, 50% more than has previously been known.

Political donations made after December 2023 are due to be published in June, and the final £5m is expected to be declared then.

The Conservative Party did not deny the additional payment.

Hester is alleged to have said that Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black female MP, made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”, in comments the Prime Minister described as “racist” after initially refusing to do so.

Sunak has resisted previous calls to pay back Hester’s money and argued that the healthcare tech entrepreneur’s apology should be accepted.

But in a sign of divisions within the ranks, the Scottish Conservatives urged the UK party to “carefully review” Hester’s donations while Tory peer and former Marks and Spencer chief executive Stuart Rose said it should “probably” return the money.

Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds said on Thursday: “Frank Hester’s remarks were clearly racist, misogynistic and have no place in our politics.

“There is absolutely no excuse for the Conservatives accepting additional money from Frank Hester. They should pay this back before it hits the coffers.

“Rishi Sunak needs to pay back every penny, cut ties with Frank Hester and apologise unequivocally to Diane Abbott.”

LibDem chief whip Wendy Chamberlain said: “The Conservative Party must urgently confirm whether these reports are true and if so hand this tainted money back.

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“The Conservative Party has dragged its feet in condemning these racist remarks for what they are. If that was in any way linked to this £5m donation it would show this scandal is even worse than we thought.

“People like Hester and his attitudes need to be nowhere near our politics. Conservative politicians need to learn that just because someone gives you millions of pounds that does not make the inexcusable, excusable.”

Sunak and Communities Secretary Michael Gove earlier suggested Hester’s comments would not be referred to the Government’s new extremism taskforce.

Gove described the remarks as “horrific” but said he was exercising “Christian forgiveness” after the entrepreneur had “shown contrition”.

Abbott, who has called Hester’s comments “frightening”, accused the Conservatives and Labour of failing to tackle racism.

In newspaper articles on Wednesday, she said the “reluctance to call out racism and sexism” was “shocking, but hardly surprising”, and warned the Conservatives would “play the race card… ruthlessly” at the next election.