Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is more reliant on super-rich backers than any major party in modern British political history.

New research from Democracy for Sale shows that three-quarters of all donations to Reform have come from just three men: Christopher Harborne, Jeremy Hosking and Richard Tice.

Together, the trio have provided £23 million of the £30 million donated since Farage set up the party – then the Brexit Party – in 2019.

On Thursday it emerged that Harborne, a Thailand-based businessman with major cryptocurrency interests, donated £9 million to Reform in September – the largest political donation by a living individual in British history.

We may never know how Reform spends this money. In the UK, political spending is only recorded and regulated in a general election year.

Our findings have intensified calls for Labour to introduce a cap on political donations in its forthcoming Elections Bill.

https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-reform-uks-donations-have-come

Posted by coffeewalnut08

17 comments

  2. Further sources to the article’s claims:

    [Top donors of Reform UK United Kingdom | DonationWatch](https://donation.watch/en/unitedkingdom/party/REFORM/donors): The top donors to Reform UK are: Christopher Harborne (£19,190,000.00), Jeremy J Hosking (£1,718,000.00), Leave Means Leave Ltd (£990,000.00), Nicholas A C Candy (£990,000.00), and Fiona Cottrell (£750,000.00).

    Christopher Harborne lives in Thailand and has previously donated to the Tory Party, Brexit Party, and Boris Johnson.

    [Reform UK reliant on leader Richard Tice for 80% of funding since 2021 | Reform UK | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/13/reform-uk-richard-tice-loans-party-funding) (from 2024). Richard Tice is also an ex-Tory.

  3. Way past time to stop “donations” from none UK outfits – and that includes some clever ducker setting up a shell outfit to bypass that.

  4. Can’t recall but did the Lib Dem’s get this inch scrutiny when they were donated £8m by Lord Sainsbury in 2019?

    This mad scramble to now be up in arms about donations is deliciously ironic to watch.

  6. >We may never know how Reform spends this money

    Was any of this money given to Farage’s girlfriend to buy him a house in Clayton?
    Farage still hasn’t explained how his girlfriend was able to pay £885,000 in cash for the house.

  9. 9million in crypto. Is there any guarantee Tehran / Kremlin are not behind the scenes? Seems like this guy is just keep funding the disintegration of UK – wow

  11. Here’s a take. Political parties shouldn’t be able to accept donations. Or they should be taxed, fucking heavily

  12. Shock horror. Rich fucks wanting to make sure the prick who will luck after them, fuck over more working class and erase more of our rights gets into power.

    God I hope people start to use their brains and see this dickhead for what he is.

  13. We need to remove donations from our political parties give them set amount from the public purse to conduct their canvassing.

    The move to ring wing politics in this country is due to private donations to Tories, ukip, brexit party and now reform they out spend the left on a massive scale.

    Source I’m a postman and deliver all the elections leaflets and the right out spends the left x5.

  15. No corporate donations should be permitted for any party without 100% traceability of the money and even then there needs to be a hefty cap.

    And tax it. I like that. To invest in a party, you have to donate 40% to the current operation of the country.

  17. Big political donations are always questionable, regardless of party.

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