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Reform UK has received the most donations of any political party by far so far this year according to data released on Thursday by the Electoral Commission.
Over the last quarter Reform UK was the biggest recipient of political donations out of any UK political party by a long way. At a total of £10,293,511, Reform received almost four times the donations of Labour (£2,190,340) and more than twice those of the Conservatives (£4,662,110).
Although Reform had reportedly been struggling to raise funds earlier this year, the £10.2 million takes them one quarter of the way to their stated goal of a £40 million war chest to prepare for the next general election.
Donors to Reform included £490,000 across two donations from the party’s treasurer and billionaire property developer Nick Candy. Candy has been charged by the party with the task of leveraging his contacts and experience to fundraise. Earlier this year Candy told the Financial Times that there were several billionaires waiting in the wings to join Reform. At the time, Reform’s intake of donations seemed lacklustre and it was reported that they were struggling to fundraise.
One Conservative source told the FT in July that “people would have expected Reform to eat our lunch, but it just hasn’t happened”, however Reform has now managed to leapfrog the Conservatives in financial terms.
The £10.2 million figure, and the discrepancy between Reform’s donations and those of the Conservatives, highlights Reform’s increasing dominance over the right-wing of British politics despite having just five MPs.
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Reform received donations from several ultra-high-net-worth individuals, including former Tory donors, that unlike Candy are not formally part of the party.
The most controversial of these was a £9 million donation from Christopher Harbourne, a businessman who has invested heavily in the cryptocurrency firm Tether. The company has recently come under fire for allegedly being used for money-laundering and sanctions evasion in Russia.
According to the Guardian, The National Crime Agency has spent the past four years investigating a multibillion-dollar scheme that exchanges cash from drug and gun sales in the UK for crypto, with the “vast majority” of funds seized by the NCA and others being issued by Tether.
The scheme has enabled “sanctions evasions and the highest levels of organised crime, including providing money-laundering services to the Russian state”, the agency has said.
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Harborne.
It was Harbourne that paid £28,000 for Farage to attend Trump’s inauguration in January. Farage has recently been courting the cryptocurrency sector, promising he will be their “champion”. Harbourne also has interests in aviation fuel and the defence firm QinetiQ.
Other donations included 130,000 from Bassim Haidar, a fintech and telecoms magnate who once advised Amnesty International and the World Economic Forum both of which Farage has railed against. Haidar, a former Conservative donor, has pledged to donate £1 million to Reform.
He gave a further £225,000 of these pledged funds between January and April this year. Haidar told the Telegraph in 2024 that he had “left” Britain and lamented that Labour’s abolition of the non-dom tax regime had rendered the country “no longer interesting” for wealthy investors. However, he remains listed at his One Hyde Park flat address in London, meaning he continues to be eligible to donate to the party.
In a sign that right-wing media magnates are also increasingly backing Reform UK, the party also took £50,000 from Viscountess Rothermere, the wife of Viscount Rothermere, the owner of the Daily Mail Group Trust, which owns the Daily Mail and is in the process of purchasing the Telegraph. This means that the party is, directly or indirectly in receipt of financial support from two of the biggest right-wing media moguls, as Farage draws a handsome salary from GB News which is co-owned by the media magnate Paul Marshall who has also purchased The Spectator.
Reform’s rise as a vehicle of choice for megadonors is raising concerns about the entry of big money into British politics.
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Tom Brake, CEO of the democratic reform group pressure group Unlock Democracy, told Byline Times: “Eye-watering donations to political parties buy undue access and influence. There is only one way to stop this and get big money out of politics. Fortunately it is really simple: cap individual and company donations to £5000 per annum. Then voters’ interests won’t be squeezed out by a vocal but tiny minority.”
Other transparency groups including Transparency International and Spotlight on Corruption have also renewed calls for a cap on political donations in light of Harbourne’s massive gift to Reform.
Reform’s rise has been compared to that of the surge in interest in the Green Party led by ‘eco-populist’ Zack Polanski. However the Greens took just £30,439 in donations, in stark contrast to the millions rolling in for Reform.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said: “Reform hoovering up vast sums of private donations isn’t a sign of political strength, but a sign of a weakness in the foundations of our democracy. When a single party can be bankrolled by a handful of wealthy individuals, it drowns out the voices of ordinary people and tilts the entire system towards the interests of those elites.
He added: “This is exactly why we need a cap on political donations. Democracy should never be for sale. Every party should compete on ideas, not on the size of their donor spreadsheet. “While Reform pockets eye-watering cheques, Greens are building a movement powered and funded by people through thousands of new members”.
Reform also had to return over £200,000 in donations earlier this year from 18 ineligible overseas donors.
According to reporting in the Financial Times this included £60,300 from 11 ineligible individuals living in Monaco, Guernsey and Jersey. Reform also returned £30,000 from Francesco Dixit Dominus, the Italian chief financial officer of Viaro Energy, an oil and gas company with operations in the North Sea. Francesco Dixit Dominus, the Italian CFO of Viaro Energy, an oil and gas firm with operations in the North Sea.
Although Reform took in the lion’s share of donations including from previous Tory donors, they did not receive any money in the last quarter from previous Reform donor and Brexit-backer Jeremy Hosking, who instead gave £20,000 to Lawrence Fox’s radical right Reclaim Party.
Reform UK was contacted for comment.