Reform UK Donations Overwhelmingly Have Overseas or Tax-Haven Ties

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In last week’s Channel 4 News and Verbatim exposé, which filmed senior Reform figures apparently encouraging foreign donations, the party’s head of policy, James Orr, was caught on camera saying: “we just don’t have British resident donors.”

New Byline Times scrutiny of Reform’s declared donations tests that claim against the record. Of the £17.09 million in donations and public funds recorded by the Electoral Commission for the second quarter (Q2) of 2026, Reform UK accounted for nearly a third – some £5.4 million, more than any other party.

Of that £5.4 million, just over 87% by value came from donors with links – through business interests or personal residence – to tax havens and comparable low-tax jurisdictions, or from people and companies based abroad. There is no suggestion of law-breaking through these donations.

Donors with tax-haven and offshore links alone account for 83% of Reform’s Q2 income. A further handful of companies whose controlling shareholders or owners are based overseas takes the total to 87%.

Some of those donors appear in the Offshore Leaks database maintained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which holds records on more than 810,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts drawn from the Pandora Papers, Paradise Papers, Bahamas Leaks, Panama Papers and Offshore Leaks investigations into people linked to using offshore entities. Inclusion in the database is not in itself an indication of wrongdoing, and offshore structures are used for purposes other than minimising tax bills.

Among those featured, and the individual comprising the lion’s share of Reform’s Q2 income is Ben Delo, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who gave £4 million across two donations in April and May. Delo, who was convicted in the United States over anti-money-laundering failures at BitMEX and later pardoned by Donald Trump, had already given the party a substantial sum in the first quarter of 2026. The two tranches make him Reform’s second most generous donor since 2019, behind fellow crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.

Delo is unlikely to be caught by the Government’s £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas voters, as he is reportedly in the process of moving back to the UK after a decade resident in Hong Kong.

Reform’s second-largest donor in the quarter was the multi-millionaire businessman Bassim Haidar, who gave £192,000 between April and June, taking his total contributions to the party to nearly £700,000. Haidar’s nationality is listed as Irish at Companies House.

He told the Telegraph in November 2024 that he had left Britain over what he described as a punitive tax regime, and that he would split his time between Greece and Dubai. He later told Byline Times that he planned to leave “sometime in the future, not determined yet” – and he remains listed at a London address and on the UK electoral register, the condition that makes his donations permissible in the first place.

Reform in Q2 also declared £14,157 from ‘Investors in Private Capital Limited’, which is ultimately owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The company previously donated £100,000 to Reform in 2025.

Two further corporate donors to have contributed this quarter have offshore parentage or dealings: BMJ Waste Ltd, which donated £50,000, is ultimately owned by a firm based in Cyprus, and Greybull Capital, which donated a further £14,000, has made use of holding companies in Jersey, though the firm says it has paid its UK tax. Greybull also donated £100,000 to Reform in 2025.

Three more donors – Eldridge Capital Management Services (UK) Limited (in the case of its parent company), Nova Venture Holdings and Flow Lloyds Holdco Limited – have persons with significant control resident overseas: in the United States in the first two cases, and in Italy in the third.

The party received £100,000 from Johan Christofferson, a partner at Christofferson, Robb & Co (CRC), whose name appears in the Offshore Leaks database as a shareholder in several Cayman-based firms under the CRC umbrella. A further £20,000 came from United Kingdom Sotheby’s International Realty Limited, whose chairman and chief executive, George ‘Girgi’ Azar, also appears in the leaks. Companies House records him as resident in the UAE, and a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda.

As reported by DeSmog in July, Farage’s party has accepted £16.8 million – 57% of the £29.2 million it has raised since the 2024 General Election – from 12 donors who feature in the Offshore Leaks database.

That database, though, captures only part of Reform’s offshore-linked funding. Investigations published more than a year apart by two separate organisations, the Good Law Project and the Observer, found that between 66% and 73% of Reform’s donations came from people or entities with tax-haven links, whether through residence or offshore business interests.

New Byline Times analysis puts the figure higher still: 81% of all donations to the party since 2019, and the same since the last general election. The three sets of figures are not in conflict. DeSmog counted only donors named in one database; the Good Law Project and the Observer counted tax-haven links. Our measure is broader than either, taking in overseas residents alongside offshore interests and tax-haven links.

Pressure For A Donations Cap

The Government has legislated for a £100,000 annual cap on donations from British citizens registered to vote from overseas. But the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has been criticised for retreating from his earlier support for a cap on domestic donations – a figure of around £500,000 was discussed before he entered Downing Street – which ministers have declined to include in the Representation of the People Bill.

The Guardian reported that the decision followed a lobbying campaign by Labour’s trade union backers, who argued that amendments to the bill could undermine their ability to donate to the party.

Last week, Democracy Minister Florence Eshalomi said the Government is “determined to tackle” the issue of “mega-donors” in British politics and is “working at pace to find a solution”, as MPs have expressed concern over the disproportionate influence of hyper-wealthy donors. There are currently no restrictions on the amount UK-based donors can give to parties or politicians.

Reform’s biggest donor, Thailand-based Christopher Harborne – who has given more than £25 million since 2019 – is absent from this quarter’s return. It is not clear why. Under the overseas cap, donors registered to vote from abroad must have been on the electoral register for 12 months before giving to a party.

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Alleged Plot

Reform is meanwhile still reeling from its latest funding scandal, after the party was reported to the Metropolitan Police and the Electoral Commission over an alleged plot to circumvent the law on foreign donations, following the undercover operation broadcast by Channel 4 News.

During the operation, a man posing as a Reform supporter with a wealthy, impermissible US-based father was filmed discussing paying for £32,500 of polling commissioned by Reform but not declared by the party.

In footage of a second meeting, the senior Farage aide Dan Jukes appeared to suggest that the father could donate by channelling the money through his son. Jukes and Reform’s head of policy, James Orr, have both since left their posts. Farage remains in post.

Reform UK, Ben Delo, Bassim Haidar, George Azar and Sotheby’s, Greybull Capital, and Johan Christofferson did not respond to requests for comment.

Reform UK: Q2 2026 donations with offshore or overseas links

Additional reporting by Josiah Mortimer.

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