The Brexit Party’s biggest donor was Christopher Harborne, a wealthy investor based in Thailand, who poured around £10-14 million into Farage’s project between 2019 and 2020. That vast foreign-based support was entirely legal because Harborne is a UK citizen, but it hardly reflects the grassroots revolt Mr Farage pretends to champion.

And what did Brexit deliver? As former US treasury secretary Larry Summers put it, Brexit is “the worst self-inflicted policy wound that a country has done since the Second World War”. The UK’s own watchdogs agree: reduced GDP, weaker productivity and persistent trade losses.

Today, Reform UK depends on the same sort of elite backing. Electoral Commission records show property developer Nick Candy (more than £400,000 in 2025), telecoms and finance investor Bassim Haidar (£200,000+ in April 2025) and City financier Jeremy Hosking (£125,000).

READ MORE: Scottish Labour MSP Foysol Choudhury suspended amid investigation

Most strikingly, Reform’s single biggest recent donor is Fiona Cottrell, who has given £750,000 in the past year. Her son, George Cottrell, was once Farage’s aide – and was jailed in the United States in 2017 after pleading guilty to wire fraud in a dark-web money-laundering scheme.

These are not grassroots fivers. They are boardroom and offshore cheques. When Farage shouts about immigration and dangles populist slogans, remember Brexit’s economic fallout and ask: who really benefits from his politics? History suggests it is not the working families of Britain, but the very elites – and even convicted fraudsters – who bankroll his campaigns.

Peter Macari

Aberdeen

THE snake-oil salesman that brought you Brexit is now selling racist-inspired economic fixes.

That’s correct, folks, the problems with the UK budget can be fixed easily enough by getting rid of all those foreign types. Well, that is the thought process behind the latest “boot them out” policy by the ultranationalists.

His ability to do so hinges on him getting into power and then striking down the Human Rights Act 1998 along with the Scottish Act of the same year and the Wales Act and Northern Irish Act of 2017. Once he does that, and we have all lost our rights, our protection under the law, he can move with impunity.

“And welcome to Fascist GB, a place that has become so isolationist in its outlook that barb wire once more guards the beaches, and the cliff tops are patrolled by the Fundamentalists Division of the Free Corps.

“Loudspeakers on every street corner blare out warnings about harbouring anybody deemed a non-citizen!

This is a sentence, long since used on everyone that shows any criticism towards the dictator or his party. Without citizenship, you can’t work, gain travel privileges or get a ration card.

“Rationing having been introduced on the breakdown of all trade agreements with our former trade partners when the excesses of cruelty of the concentration camps became common knowledge on the world stage.”

You consider that statement over the top? Do you think it is pure fantasy? Then I suggest you read up on Germany in the 1930s.

We can’t let the seller of snake oil a toehold in Scotland, and we certainly need to stand up to all unilateralists as and when they raise their flag of racist hatred.

Cliff Purvis

Veterans for Scottish Independence 2.0

IT’S official! I’m deemed by society to be a total weirdo! Why? I ain’t got a bloody, god-awful smartphone! I can’t stand the damned things. Smartphones, with their “amazing” touchscreen technology, dinnae like auld gits like me wi seriously clumsy fingers! Gie me a laptop any day o’ the week, wi the satisfying whack, often in temper, o’ that keyboard, that never fails tae deliver, despite the serious abuse the poor thing gets fae me!

So where the hell am I gaun wi this? My partner, wi the same political beliefs as me, is deemed by society tae be normal (ie she has a smartphone!). She kindly, therefore, from time to time, shows me clips on it that she reckons will interest me. Recently she came up wi a total gem!

She showed me a short clip fae one o’ these podcast thingies by Skotia. It was The National’s very ain editor extraordinaire (it’s pathetic what I’ll dae tae get ma letter published!), Laura Webster, defending the accusation by god knows who that The National is an “activist newspaper”, for god’s sake!

Laura, quite rightly, knocked back this garbage in a very calm, controlled manner (that widnae be me, a wis raging!). She argued that naebody wid accuse the Daily Record o’ that even though it’s biased in favour o’ Labour and likewise wi the Daily Express which is a massive pal o’ Farage!

Aye, there jist ain’t such a thing as an impartial newspaper so The National, quite rightly, has tae be the only kid on the block not only tae support independence, but tae highlight the evils of grotesque inequality, the genocide in Gaza and basically other stuff aw the other papers winnae touch wi a barge pole, even The Guardian for god’s sake!

Talking aboot newspapers, back in the gid auld days o’ the 1970s (a ken, am a nostalgic auld git!), ma dear auld late faither read The Scotsman every day. That’s when I first started tae read serious stuff. The Scotsman was clearly a liberal newspaper of note back then, but without going intae the history, it’s now unrecognisable o’ that paper today (ie ownership, dear boy, ownership!).

Back in 2018, I had a hernia operation at the private Murrayfield Spire hospital in Edinburgh, very much against ma political beliefs. However, the circumstances were that due to the waiting list in the NHS, they decided tae pay for my treatment there, so thankfully it was NHS dosh, not me being a total hypocrite! It still didnae sit well wi me though!

The point being is that one of the “perks” there was tae get a complimentary copy of the Scotsman tae read. I read it and it was utter garbage compared tae what I read back in the 1970s. Jist another Yoon rag as far as I’m concerned, but that apart, it had totally lost its soul!

Aye, Laura o’ The National, yer quite right tae totally defend the paper’s right tae plough its ain furrow against the rising and inexorable tide o’ right-wing extremism and at best pathetic mediocrity! Jist gaun fur it, hen!

Ivor Telfer

Dalgety Bay, Fife

SO, this is the new world? Courage only from comedians?

From Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Jimmy Kimmel – comedians holding the line for democracy where politicians fawn, fail and are afeared and media moguls collaborate, kowtow and cave to authoritarianism?

You must be joking …

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

I SEE an Edinburgh University audience backed the Union in an indy debate. Well, well … the university where English students have the unmitigated gall to look down their snouts at students from this country? Knock me down with a gnat’s wing!

JR

Fife

THE Labour Government is clutching at straws. Digital IDs will become mandatory to allow one to work in the UK, as said the PM!

Those proposals are yet another attempt by the Westminster Government to tackle illegal immigration and it will become like previous attempts and fail. But let’s be honest, it is the Labour Government panicking over the rise of Reform UK.

We already have so many forms of ID: passport, driving licence, National Insurance number, NHS number, bus passes, so what is the need for Digital IDs?

Westminster digital ID proposals will portray us all as British, something many will be very uncomfortable with. Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander MP suggests that the new digital ID could be stored on a smartphone. This idea would surely exclude many who have simply not gone fully digital for whatever reason.

This is a recipe for fraud and neither the UK Government nor security will be able to contain the fallout that could follow.

Catriona C Clark

Falkirk

KEIR Starmer is going to announce his digital ID scheme at the Labour conference in Liverpool. Cabinet members have already expressed their support so expect no major backlash from the Labour Party.

This is why you and I have to stand up for our rights and freedoms! Our government doesn’t care – it wants more power and it wants it now! Once this ID system is in place, it won’t be rolled back. Once the infrastructure is set up, every aspect of your life will be surveilled by the government.

This will be a fundamental lack of privacy. You won’t be able to decide what you do, when you do it and who you do it with. All of those decisions will be in the hands of the state. We want less government intervention, not more! Scotland is about liberty, not surveillance and control.

Labour were stopped on this before, with a huge public outcry. We need to do it again. Oh, and by the way, why do we need it? He came up with the fear of immigrants – pretending that we can’t spot an illegal immigrant without this. REALLY? Does Keith think we are stupid!

B McKenna

Dumbarton

ON Wednesday, the energy price cap is set to rise again, meaning the average annual bill will increase by approximately £35 per Scottish homeowner when compared with last year.

As a charity supporting individuals who struggle with their heating bills, we urge homeowners to seek as much support as possible in the face of this fuel poverty emergency. More than a third of households are living in fuel poverty, a national disgrace.

Several opportunities are available for support. The UK Government Warm Homes Discount Scheme, for example, offers a £150 discount for eligible low-income families, and we would urge those in difficulty to contact suppliers.

Considering this, it is high time the UK Government recognised the glaring need for the introduction of a social energy tariff. This will provide a discounted energy price for those who meet the eligibility criteria, such as low-income households and those living with unavoidably high energy costs due to disability or illness.

We recently celebrated our 25th anniversary and are using this milestone to, along with others, call on the Government to consider a targeted energy tariff and make sure that families no longer have to make the terrible choice between eating and heating their homes.

Lynda Mitchell

CEO, ALIenergy