Westminster Accounts: ‘The next big scandal’ – Informal groups of MPs given £20m from external organisations since 2019
All-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) have received over £20m worth of funding from external organisations since the 2019 general election, with registered lobbying agencies dominating the ranks of biggest benefactors.
Companies are required by law to sign the consultant lobbyist register if they engage in direct communications with ministers in relation to government policy or legislation on behalf of paying clients.
APPGs are informal interest groups of MPs and peers that facilitate cross-party work on an issue, a country or a sector, but the chair of one of Westminster’s ethics watchdogs has told Sky News they could represent “the next big scandal”.
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What is an APPG and why do they matter?
Search for your MP using the Westminster Accounts tool
The role of lobbying agencies is usually to provide MPs with a secretariat to administer the APPG.
The agencies are paid to provide the service by other outside organisations, which are listed in the parliamentary register.
But Lord Pickles, chair of the advisory committee on business appointments, said: “This is the next big scandal, and I think we need to take action now before it further develops.
“We need to know when people are producing reports that they’re speaking for members of parliament and not for the lobbyists.”
He added: “By and large, the all-party groups are fairly harmless. They perform in a niche in which particular members of parliament are interested.
“But for a number of them, the secretariat comes from professional organisations or lobbying groups and from organisations that have a political axe to grind. And I don’t think there is sufficient transparency in terms of why they’re doing.”
Lobbying industry insiders have defended the role of APPGs in the democratic process as a “force for good” – but one conceded to Sky News “there are bad ones”, while another said a “minority” are funded by organisations “trying to unfairly influence parliamentary decisions”.
From banking, beer and Bermuda, to Christianity, climate change and China, there are now more APPGs than there are sitting MPs, with 746 active groups in the latest register update – a number that has almost doubled since 2015.
The groups have come under greater scrutiny following MI5’s revelation in January last year that Christine Lee, a businesswoman identified as an agent for the Chinese government, had used donations to the Chinese in Britain APPG as part of “political interference activities“.
There has been a particular focus on how MPs have used the groups as justification for accepting gifted travel and trips abroad from foreign governments.
For example, £222,308 of the £242,000 that Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has donated to MPs since the last election came in the form of flights, hotels and hospitality for APPG visits to the country.
But while groups dedicated to foreign countries have so far attracted the most attention, those focused on policy areas make up a much greater proportion of APPGs.
Last spring, the Committee on Standards published a report that called on the government to look again at how APPGs are regulated, warning they could “all too easily become a parliamentary front for an external commercial entity”.
While the report concluded that lobbying was “an important part of a healthy democracy” and that it was “crucial that the interests of different sectors, organisations and communities can be brought to the attention of members and ministers”, it warned there were “few, if any, safeguards in place” for APPGs.
In September, the government responded by saying it agreed that “their informal structures make them potentially vulnerable to improper influence and access” and welcomed the committee’s proposals for a “gatekeeper” to be introduced to approve the establishment of any new APPGs.
Although APPGs can use the parliamentary meeting rooms and a portcullis logo on their publications, they receive no financial support from parliament and many are run with the assistance of external organisations – which include private companies, charities and academic institutions.
Some provide cash donations, but most of the backing comes in the form of benefits in kind. This often amounts to providing a secretariat which handles administrative work, events, trips and the publication of reports.
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Rishi Sunak has reacted to the Westminster Accounts – a joint project from Sky News and Tortoise Media which is shedding new light on the way money and politics interact in the UK.
Who needs to register as a consultant lobbyist?
Analysis by Sky News shows 10 of the top 20 biggest sources of funding to APPGs are registered consultant lobbyists, who have provided millions of pounds worth of services to the groups.
According to the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists, organisations are required by law to sign the register if they are VAT-registered in the UK and engage in “oral, written or electronic communications personally to a Minister of the Crown of Permanent Secretary” on behalf of a paying client in relation to attempts to “make or amend” legislation or policy.
Policy Connect – the biggest player in terms of the monetary value of the services offered – currently provides the secretariat for 10 APPGs on areas such as carbon monoxide, design and innovation, and climate change.
The company, which describes itself as a cross-party thinktank that operates as a not-for-profit social enterprise, has been on the register of consultant lobbyists since 2017 and declared more than 440 clients in that period – including trade and industry bodies, charities, educational institutions, local authorities and private companies.
For example, in the APPG register in 2021, Policy Connect said it was running the secretariat for the APPG on manufacturing based on funding it had received from trade groups such as Make UK, the British Aerosol Manufacturers Association and the Institution of Engineering and Technology; education institutions like the University of Bristol, and private firms such as BAE Systems, Tata Steel, Cummins and Deloitte.
On its website, Policy Connect lists organisations that have paid to join its “supporters programme”. It breaks them down into categories based on the size of their financial contribution, with brackets going from £5,000 up to £70,000.
Policy Connect defended this programme at a hearing of the Standards Committee last year, when challenged by MPs on whether this amounted to charging different rates for access to APPGs.
Claudia Jaksch, CEO of Policy Connect, told Sky News her organisation “provides the capacity to take on the administrative functions from parliamentarians so they can concentrate on the substance of the issues” and said money paid by clients had no connection to the amount of access or involvement they had in the APPGs.
“In relation to the different funding amounts Policy Connect receives, these reflect the size of the funding organisation to ensure a high level of diversity of supporters, and/or the interest of a funding organisation in supporting our work across multiple areas and programmes, and/or the different levels of administrative support and staff time required by different APPGs.
“Regardless of funding amount no organisation receives preferential treatment. Editorial control rests firmly with the parliamentary members of each APPG.”
Another major provider of secretariat services to APPGs is Connect Communications.
It has run the secretariats of 17 APPGs since the last general election, all of them on behalf of multiple clients – which are all declared in the parliamentary APPG register.
In its second-quarter return for the register of consultant lobbyists in 2021, the company recorded “lobbying done on behalf of” the APPGs on water, childcare, digital skills, hydrogen and apprenticeships.
It has also advertised its expertise in this area, offering courses for clients on “how to run an APPG”, including how to identify MPs to sit on an APPG and how to secure media coverage for an APPG’s work.
A website posting about a training course in 2016 says: “APPGs are increasingly seen as an effective means to shaping policy… Connect has unrivalled experience in setting up successful APPGs – come learn from us about how your organisation would benefit from working with APPGs.”
In a statement to Sky News, a spokesperson said: “Connect ensure that groups we are involved with operate in an open and transparent way, fully compliant with the strict rules set by the parliamentary authorities. It is important to note that MPs and peers set the agenda for an APPG and must approve all activity, including the involvement of outside organisations.”
The spokesperson said the lobbying the company had registered on behalf of APPGs relates to things like sending speaking invitations to ministers for an event, adding “this is a technical point and does not reflect an active ‘lobbying’ role”, and that its provision of client training for “setting up successful APPGs” has a “particular focus on ensuring compliance with the strict 32-page rule book set by the parliamentary authorities, including around the required composition of groups, with MPs and peers participating from all parties.”
In the case of both Policy Connect and Connect Communications, the APPG secretariats they provide are funded by multiple clients, but that is not always the case in other APPGs.
Wychwood Consulting runs the secretariats of a number of APPGs on behalf of single clients.
For example, it runs the recently established Central Bank and Digital Currency APPG on behalf of Portdex, a company creating a decentralized digital economy platform using blockchain technology; the Digital Identity APPG on behalf of Yogi, an ID verification company, and it also provided the secretariat for the now disbanded Business In A Pandemic World APPG on behalf of Cignpost, a COVID diagnostics firm.
While there is no suggestion Wychwood Consulting or the APPGs in question have broken any rules, some in the wider industry have raised concerns about the potential problems that could arise from having a single financial backer.
Liam Herbert, who chairs the public affairs group at the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), told Sky News: “The potential problem is where you have an organisation that might be promoting one single issue from their point of view alone. That’s not the purpose of an APPG.
“The purpose of an APPG is to inform parliamentarians about a wider issue. So if you take one, your sole area of interest, and promote that through an APPG, that’s not very democratic, it’s not very clear and it’s not very transparent.”
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Who is donating money to MPs?
Lobbying is not a bad word
The lobbying industry has recently started the Lobbying for Good Lobbying campaign, calling for greater openness.
Speaking to Sky News at the launch event, Gill Morris, the CEO of DevoConnect – which has provided £192,000 worth of secretariat services to six APPGs since the last election – said: “People need to understand that lobbying is not a bad word, it’s a good word.
“When you have a government of an 80-seat majority, having all-party consensus on an issue is really important … we bring a collaboration together which actually makes sense for government. I know our APPG helped influence getting more money for northern culture in the levelling-up fund. We did that. We know that.”
“Yeah, there are good ones, there are bad ones, but when we get that collaboration and bring them together it’s all-party – and that does have voice.”
Asked whether she believed some APPGs are being used to push a particular corporate agenda, Ms Morris said: “There are really good APPGs and there are others where it’s quite clear that they are a direct point of access … I think it might be true [but] I think probably, most groups do things or operate the way we do.”
Sarah Pinch, a former president of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, said the issue with APPGs was not about how they were funded, but the activity they undertook.
“I think there are a minority of APPGs that are funded by certain organisations who are peddling their line and they are trying to unfairly influence parliamentary decisions through a system that was not set up to do that,” she said.
“APPGs are a force for good. We need to be clear and transparent about who’s involved in them, who’s funding them and who’s influencing them. Because if we’re not, we run the risk, for example, that that could be a health APPG that is funded by the sugar industry, and that is wrong.”
While the data compiled in the Westminster Accounts provides insight into the amount of funding declared by APPGs and their sources, it only captures activity that is required to be registered.
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How you can explore the Westminster Accounts
What needs to be registered?
However, there are publicly visible examples of work by private companies in relation to APPGs that do not break any rules but are not reflected in the parliamentary registers.
One example is Firehouse Communications, which cites its experience dealing with APPGs as part of its pitch to prospective clients on its website.
In a case study, the company explains how it helped an unnamed “leading offshore tax jurisdiction” achieve its policy aims around Brexit.
In its list of challenges faced by the offshore jurisdiction, Firehouse Communications notes that the APPG related to the jurisdiction was “inert”.
Explaining its strategy for assisting the offshore jurisdiction, the company says it worked to “support liaison with [the] APPG and other groups”.
However, Firehouse Communications does not appear in the APPG register or in the register of members’ interests, other than a £3,000 payment it made to Sir Michael Fallon, the former defence secretary, for a speech to a Hungarian thinktank.
Firehouse Communications told Sky News it had provided “no benefit in kind to any APPG on any basis”.
There is no suggestion any of the work it conducted was registerable.
Some in the lobbying industry, however, say the rules around what should be registered and declared should be widened to capture more of the activity that goes on in relation to APPGs.
Liam Herbert, chair of the public affairs group at the PRCA, said: “At the moment, all that is regulated are what’s called consultant lobbyists – so professional companies who do lobbying and public affairs for a living.
“But everyone lobbies and lobbying is fundamentally a central part of our democracy. But a lot of it goes unrecorded and unchallenged and unseen. So almost everybody has an opportunity to lobby. But only the industry who says we lobby for a living is currently regulated.”
Donald Trump’s plan for ending the war in Ukraine would hand swathes of land to Russia and limit the size of Kyiv’s military, a draft has revealed.
The copy of the proposal that originates from negotiations between Washington and Moscow was obtained by the Associated Press and appears emphatically favourable to Russia.
It closely resembles the list of demands repeatedly stated by the Kremlin since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.
Points included in the plan are widely seen as untenable for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has rejected Mr Trump‘s previous calls for territorial concessions.
Ukraine war latest – Zelenskyy responds to Trump peace plan
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Pic: Reuters
The draft was reportedly devised by Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev.
It says there would be a “decisive coordinated military response” in the event of further Russian incursions onto Ukrainian territory, but does not say what role the United States would play in that response.
A side agreement aims to satisfy Ukrainian security concerns by saying a future “significant, deliberate and sustained armed attack” by Russia would be viewed as “threatening the peace and security of the transatlantic community”.
The agreement – detailed to the AP by an unnamed senior US official – does not obligate the US or European allies to intervene on Ukraine’s behalf, although it says they would “determine the measures necessary to restore security”.
The 28-point plan states Ukraine must cede the entirety of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk to Russia – despite Ukraine still controlling a third of the latter. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be frozen along the existing lines of conflict.
Ukraine’s army, currently at roughly 880,000 troops, would be reduced to 600,000.
A serviceman of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Pic: Reuters
Some frozen Russian assets would go toward rebuilding Ukraine, while sanctions on Russia would be lifted and Moscow and Washington would enter in a series of “long-term” economic arrangements.
The document says Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO, but would be eligible to join the European Union.
It also says elections must be held in Ukraine in 100 days.
Here is the 28-point draft agreement in full:
1. Ukraine’s sovereignty will be confirmed.
2. A comprehensive non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled.
3. It is expected that Russia will not invade neighbouring countries and NATO will not expand further.
4. A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation in order to ensure global security and increase opportunities for cooperation and future economic development.
(l-r)Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev and US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg in April. Pic: Kremlin Pool Photo/AP
5. Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees.
6. The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel.
7. Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future.
8. NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine.
9. European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.
10. The US guarantee:
– The US will receive compensation for the guarantee;
– If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee;
– If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated, recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of this deal will be revoked;
Ukraine and Europe cannot reject Trump’s plan – they will play for time
“Terrible”, “weird”, “peculiar” and “baffling” – some of the adjectives being levelled by observers at the Donald Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine.
The 28-point proposal was cooked up between Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev without European and Ukrainian involvement.
It effectively dresses up Russian demands as a peace proposal. Demands first made by Russia at the high watermark of its invasion in 2022, before defeats forced it to retreat from much of Ukraine.
Its proposals are non-starters for Ukrainians.
It would hand over the rest of Donbas, territory they have spent almost four years and lost tens of thousands of men defending.
Analysts estimate at the current rate of advance, it would take Russia four more years to take the land it is proposing simply to give them instead.
It proposes more than halving the size of the Ukrainian military and depriving them of some of their most effective long-range weapons.
And it would bar any foreign forces acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine after any peace deal is done.
The plan comes at an excruciating time for the Ukrainians.
They are being pounded with devastating drone attacks, killing dozens in the last few nights alone.
They are on the verge of losing a key stronghold city, Pokrovsk.
And Volodymyr Zelenskyy is embroiled in the gravest political crisis since the war began, with key officials facing damaging corruption allegations.
The suspicion is Mr Witkoff and Mr Dmitriev conspired together to choose this moment to put even more pressure on the Ukrainian president.
Perversely, though, it may help him.
There has been universal condemnation and outrage in Kyiv at the Witkoff-Dmitriev plan. Rivals have little choice but to rally around the wartime Ukrainian leader as he faces such unreasonable demands.
The genesis of this plan is unclear.
Was it born from Donald Trump’s overinflated belief in his peacemaking abilities? His overrated Gaza ceasefire plan attracted lavish praise from world leaders, but now seems mired in deepening difficulty.
The fear is Mr Trump’s team are finding ways to allow him to walk away from this conflict altogether, blaming Ukrainian intransigence for the failure of his diplomacy.
Mr Trump has already ended financial support for Ukraine, acting as an arms dealer instead, selling weapons to Europe to pass on to the invaded democracy.
If he were to take away military intelligence support too, Ukraine would be blind to the kind of attacks that in recent days have killed scores of civilians.
Europe and Ukraine cannot reject the plan entirely and risk alienating Mr Trump.
They will play for time and hope against all the evidence he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin and put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war, rather than force Ukraine to surrender instead.
– If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid.
11. Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive short-term preferential access to the European market while this issue is being considered.
12. A powerful global package of measures to rebuild Ukraine, including but not limited to:
– The creation of a Ukraine Development Fund to invest in fast-growing industries, including technology, data centres, and artificial intelligence.
– The United States will cooperate with Ukraine to jointly rebuild, develop, modernise, and operate Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilities.
– Joint efforts to rehabilitate war-affected areas for the restoration, reconstruction and modernisation of cities and residential areas.
– Infrastructure development.
– Extraction of minerals and natural resources.
– The World Bank will develop a special financing package to accelerate these efforts.
13. Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy:
– The lifting of sanctions will be discussed and agreed upon in stages and on a case-by-case basis.
– The United States will enter into a long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centres, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities.
– Russia will be invited to rejoin the G8.
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Ukraine: US ‘has the power’ to make Russia ‘serious’
14. Frozen funds will be used as follows:
– $100bn (£76bn) in frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine;
– The US will receive 50% of the profits from this venture. Europe will add $100bn (£76bn) to increase the amount of investment available for Ukraine’s reconstruction. Frozen European funds will be unfrozen. The remainder of the frozen Russian funds will be invested in a separate US-Russian investment vehicle that will implement joint projects in specific areas. This fund will be aimed at strengthening relations and increasing common interests to create a strong incentive not to return to conflict.
15. A joint American-Russian working group on security issues will be established to promote and ensure compliance with all provisions of this agreement.
16. Russia will enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine.
17. The United States and Russia will agree to extend the validity of treaties on the non-proliferation and control of nuclear weapons, including the START I Treaty.
18. Ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Pic: Reuters
19. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant will be launched under the supervision of the IAEA, and the electricity produced will be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine – 50:50.
20. Both countries undertake to implement educational programmes in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice:
– Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities.
– Both countries will agree to abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education.
– All Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited.
The Donbas
Zaporizhia
21. Territories:
– Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognised as de facto Russian, including by the United States.
– Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be frozen along the line of contact, which will mean de facto recognition along the line of contact.
– Russia will relinquish other agreed territories it controls outside the five regions.
Read more
Analysis: Why Zelenskyy has to tread carefully over peace plan, or face a Trump ultimatum
Analysis: What deleted post reveals about ‘secret’ plan to end Ukraine war
– Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control, and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarised buffer zone, internationally recognised as territory belonging to the Russian Federation. Russian forces will not enter this demilitarised zone.
22. After agreeing on future territorial arrangements, both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force. Any security guarantees will not apply in the event of a breach of this commitment.
The east of Ukraine
23. Russia will not prevent Ukraine from using the Dnieper [Dnipro] River for commercial activities, and agreements will be reached on the free transport of grain across the Black Sea.
24. A humanitarian committee will be established to resolve outstanding issues:
– All remaining prisoners and bodies will be exchanged on an ‘all for all’ basis.
– All civilian detainees and hostages will be returned, including children.
– A family reunification program will be implemented.
– Measures will be taken to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the conflict.
25. Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days.
26. All parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war and agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.
27. This agreement will be legally binding. Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by the Peace Council, headed by President Donald J Trump. Sanctions will be imposed for violations.
28. Once all parties agree to this memorandum, the ceasefire will take effect immediately after both sides retreat to agreed points to begin implementation of the agreement.
World
Ukraine and Europe cannot reject Trump’s plan – they will play for time and hope he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin
“Terrible”, “weird”, “peculiar” and “baffling” – some of the adjectives being levelled by observers at the Donald Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine.
The 28-point proposal was cooked up between Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev without European and Ukrainian involvement.
It effectively dresses up Russian demands as a peace proposal. Demands first made by Russia at the high watermark of its invasion in 2022, before defeats forced it to retreat from much of Ukraine.
Ukraine war latest: Kyiv receives US peace plan
(l-r) Kirill Dmitriev and special envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg in April 2025. Pic: Kremlin Pool Photo/AP
Its proposals are non-starters for Ukrainians.
It would hand over the rest of Donbas, territory they have spent almost four years and lost tens of thousands of men defending.
Analysts estimate at the current rate of advance, it would take Russia four more years to take the land it is proposing simply to give them instead.
It proposes more than halving the size of the Ukrainian military and depriving them of some of their most effective long-range weapons.
And it would bar any foreign forces acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine after any peace deal is done.
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Is Moscow back in Washington’s good books?
The plan comes at an excruciating time for the Ukrainians.
They are being pounded with devastating drone attacks, killing dozens in the last few nights alone.
They are on the verge of losing a key stronghold city, Pokrovsk.
And Volodymyr Zelenskyy is embroiled in the gravest political crisis since the war began, with key officials facing damaging corruption allegations.
Read more from Sky News:
Witkoff’s ‘secret’ plan to end war
Navy could react to laser incident
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Ukrainian support for peace plan ‘very much in doubt’
The suspicion is Mr Witkoff and Mr Dmitriev conspired together to choose this moment to put even more pressure on the Ukrainian president.
Perversely, though, it may help him.
There has been universal condemnation and outrage in Kyiv at the Witkoff-Dmitriev plan. Rivals have little choice but to rally around the wartime Ukrainian leader as he faces such unreasonable demands.
The genesis of this plan is unclear.
Was it born from Donald Trump’s overinflated belief in his peacemaking abilities? His overrated Gaza ceasefire plan attracted lavish praise from world leaders, but now seems mired in deepening difficulty.
The fear is Mr Trump’s team are finding ways to allow him to walk away from this conflict altogether, blaming Ukrainian intransigence for the failure of his diplomacy.
Mr Trump has already ended financial support for Ukraine, acting as an arms dealer instead, selling weapons to Europe to pass on to the invaded democracy.
If he were to take away military intelligence support too, Ukraine would be blind to the kind of attacks that in recent days have killed scores of civilians.
Europe and Ukraine cannot reject the plan entirely and risk alienating Mr Trump.
They will play for time and hope against all the evidence he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin and put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war, rather than force Ukraine to surrender instead.
World
South Africa is making history with its first G20 summit, but the continued exclusion of its oldest communities is a symbolic threat
This is the first time the G20 summit is being hosted on African soil.
Heads of state from 15 countries across Europe, Asia and South America are expected to convene in South Africa’s economic capital, Johannesburg, under the banner of “solidarity, equality and sustainability.”
The summit is facing challenges from the Oval Office as US President Donald Trump boycotts the event, where the G20 leadership is meant to be handed over to him by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The US has also warned South Africa against issuing a joint declaration at the end of the summit. The challenges to South Africa’s G20 debut are also domestic.
Trump had a contentious meeting with Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office earlier this year. File pic: AP
Nationwide civic disobedience has been planned by women’s rights charities, nationalist groups and trade unions – all using this moment to draw the government’s attention to critical issues it has failed to address around femicide, immigration and high unemployment.
But a key symbolic threat to the credibility of an African G20 summit themed around inclusivity is the continued exclusion and marginalisation of its oldest communities.
“There is a disingenuous thread that runs right through many of these gatherings, and the G20 is no different”, Khoisan Chief Zenzile tells us in front of the First Nations Heritage Centre in Cape Town, “from any of them”.
“I am very concerned that the many marginalised sections of society – youth, indigenous people, are not inside the front and centre of this agenda,” he added.
Khoisan Chief Zenzile says land developments on indigenous land are the ‘most ridiculous notion’
As we speak, the sounds of construction echo around us. We are standing in a curated indigenous garden as South Africa’s Amazon headquarters is being built nearby.
After years of being sidelined by the government in a deal that centres around construction on sacred Khoisan land, Chief Zenzile said he negotiated directly with the developers to build the heritage centre and sanctuary as a trade-off while retaining permanent ownership of the land.
“There are many people who like to fetishise indigenous people who want to relegate us to an anthropoid state, as if that is the only place we can, as if we don’t have the tools to navigate the modern world,” he says when I ask about modern buildings towering over the sacred land.
“That is the most ridiculous notion – that the entire world must progress and we must be relegated to a state over which we have no agency.”
An hour and a half from Cape Town’s centre, Khoi-San communities have seized 2,000 hectares of land that they say historically belongs to them.
Knoflokskraal is a state where they exercise full agency – filling in the infrastructural gaps around water and electricity supply that the provincial government will not offer to residents it categorises as “squatters”.
“We are – exactly today – here for five years now,” Dawid De Wee, president of the Khoi Aboriginal Party, tells us as he gives us a tour of the settlement. “There are more or less around 4,000 of us.
“The calling from our ancestral graves sent us down here, so we had an urge to get our own identity and get back to our roots, and that was the driving motive behind everything we are here now to take back our ancestral grounds.”
‘We are here now to take back our ancestral grounds,’ Dawid De Wee says
Dawid says they have plans to expand to reclaim more swathes of land stolen from them by European settlers in the 1600s across the Cape Colony.
Land reform is a contentious issue in post-Apartheid South Africa, with a white minority still owning a majority of the land.
Read more from Yousra Elbagir:
The ‘killing fields’ where thousands ‘made to bury their relatives’
Madagascar’s new president denies coup after Gen Z uprising
Niece of woman ‘murdered by British soldier’ seeking justice in UK
Indigenous land is even further down the agenda of reparations, and South Africa’s oldest communities continue to suffer from historic dispossession and marginalisation.
For many Khoi-San leaders, G20 represents the ongoing exclusion from a modern South African state.
They have not been invited to officially participate in events where “solidarity, equality and sustainability,” are being discussed without reference to their age-old knowledge.
Instead, we meet Khoi-San Queen Eloise at a gathering of tribal leaders from around the world on the most southwestern tip of Africa in Cape Point called the World Tribal Alliance.
Khoi-San Queen Eloise tells Sky that the G20 ‘is a politically-based gathering’
“In order for us to heal, Mother Nature and Mother Earth is calling us, calling our kinship, to come together – especially as indigenous people because with indigenous people we are still connected to our lands, to our intellectual property we are connected to who we are,” Queen Eloise tells us.
“G20 is a politically-based gathering – they are coming together to determine the future of people politically.
“The difference is that we will seek what Mother Earth wants from us and not what we want to do with technology or all those things politically, but the depth of where we are supposed to go.”
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