Chuka Umunna is in line to get paid £65,000 a year to chair a new centrist think tank for just 12 hours a month.
The Labour MP announced this month he will be heading up the advisory board of Progressive Centre UK, which has the “aim of connecting progressives from across the UK with the latest ideas and experience from across the globe”.
But according to Buzzfeed News reports, his work will come at a cost of £5,420 a month for 12 hours of his time, which equates to an hourly rate of £451.
The MP for Streatham will be earning the money in addition to his MP’s salary of £77,379, and the £12,000 per year he is paid by the Independent website for writing a weekly column.
That takes the total declared annual earnings of Umunna to over £150,000.
Umunna has been tipped to lead a centrist party if factions of the Labour and Tory Party split.
Writing in the Independent this week he plugged the Progressive Centre UK think tank in a column titled “Whether you want to call it centrism or progressive politics, it’s back”.
But his claims that other nations are moving towards centrist politics have since been largely rebuked elsewhere.
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