Reform given huge donations by crypto currency billionaires

winterwhite

Yet the Lib Dem’s with a tiny budget have 71 MPs so money isn’t the be all and end all of winning elections

And yet Reform UK got more votes by about half a million, I think.

Primrose53

Rayner talking money morals? What an absolute joke! 🤣🤣🤣

Has she conveniently forgotten Lord Sainsbury’s £10million donation to Labour? Or Lord Ali and all his gifts and donations and of course the Trade Union bosses.

All the people you mention are British citizens. Farage is taking huge amounts of money from from crypto currency business owners from abroad who wants to interfere in British politics.
Why would they be interested in Reform unless there is something in it for them?

FriedGreenTomatoes2

winterwhite

Yet the Lib Dem’s with a tiny budget have 71 MPs so money isn’t the be all and end all of winning elections

And yet Reform UK got more votes by about half a million, I think.

The Lib Dem’s are experienced and street smart though, they understand the game, and that’s why they won more seats. It’s like a game of football, in the end all that counts is winning.

Those citing trades union donations seem to forget that money represents over 6 million people and come from the members dues and therefore from many, many people.

That is a very different thing to two crypto billionaires donating £72 million in a day of one another.

Harborne had already donated £22 million to the Brexit Party and Reform - the same party with a name change plus of course the £5 undeclared payment to Farage.

Delo has already donated £8 million to Reform this year.

Two men. £107 million.

According to Electoral Commission records, the Sainsbury family as a whole have donated a total of less than £50 million which went to Labour, Lib Dems and Conservative Parties over a period of over 20 years.

The largest donation it ever made was to the Conservatives - £10 million three years ago by Lord John. The send largest was £8 million to the Lib Dems in 2019 by Lord David. The largest donation to the Labour Party was £3 million in 2023 by Lord David.

tinyurl.com/3r6cmumj

Accuracy and perspective is needed rather than vague whataboutery.

“FriedGreenTomatoes2

winterwhite
Yet the Lib Dem’s with a tiny budget have 71 MPs so money isn’t the be all and end all of winning elections
And yet Reform UK got more votes by about half a million, I think.“

That’s our current political system 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Farage says the money will be used to prepare for government.
Did he mean in the same way all of those new Councillors were given such effect training?
How many have bailed out so far?
🤔 🤣 😂

When looking at voting numbers for 2024 (turnout 59.7%, votes 28.8 million) they should be considered in relation to 2019 (turnout 67.3%, votes 32 million).

2024 Lib Dems 3.5 million, 2019 3.7 million - consistent and, looking at voter flow, picking up votes from left and right.

2024 Tories 6.8 million, 2019 14 million

2024 Labour 9.7 million, 2019 10.2 million - picked up some votes from Tories but lost others to Lib Dems and Greens.

2024 Reform 4.1 million, 2019 as Brexit Party 640,000

2024 Green 1.8 million, 2019 865,000

Add Tory and Reform together for 2024 and you get around 11 million. That’s how Labour and LibDems did so well seat-wise in 2024 because Reform split the Tory vote. Arguably, the 3 million decrease in turnout were mostly former Tory voters who didn’t bother.

In December 2025, YouGov polled people on changing attitudes to PR compared to the previous year:

Among voters for other parties, attitudes are largely unchanged. Two thirds of Green (67%) and Lib Dem voters (65%) back PR, as do a majority of Labour voters (56%), while Conservatives are divided between the 43% who support FPTP and the 38% who favour PR.

However, while 2024 Reform UK voters are still more likely to back PR than FPTP, the 45% favouring electoral reform is a double-digit decrease from polls in January and July 2024 when 55-56% support changing the voting system in this way.

Against this, the proportion of Reform UK voters favouring FPTP has risen 14 points from 17% last January to 31% in our latest figures.

yougov.com/en-gb/articles/53890-support-for-proportional-representation-has-fallen-among-reform-uk-voters

It will be interesting to see the next polling on this now that Reform support is falling way.

AGAA4

Primrose53

Rayner talking money morals? What an absolute joke! 🤣🤣🤣

Has she conveniently forgotten Lord Sainsbury’s £10million donation to Labour? Or Lord Ali and all his gifts and donations and of course the Trade Union bosses.

All the people you mention are British citizens. Farage is taking huge amounts of money from from crypto currency business owners from abroad who wants to interfere in British politics.
Why would they be interested in Reform unless there is something in it for them?

Both Delo and Harborne are British.

Christopher Harborne has lived in Thailand since 1990s, and became a Thai citizen in 2011. He has dual nationality, but has not lived in UK for thirty years.

Ben Delonhas lived in Hong Kong for fourteen years, since 2012.

Neither of them are currently resident in UK.

Delo has. - apologies for the auto correct, I don’t know what word it invented!

Delo says he has plenty of money for himself even giving a huge chunk to Reform. He also says he is doing it because he wants a better country for his grandchildren.

25Avalon

Delo says he has plenty of money for himself even giving a huge chunk to Reform. He also says he is doing it because he wants a better country for his grandchildren.

Precisely and good for them.

It’s great that wealthy British born people donate.

Labour would absolutely snatch their hands off if the donations had been offered to them.

Ben Delo and what goes on at "The Sanctuary" is terrifying.

archive.is/20260913063137/https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/who-is-ben-delo-the-former-maths-prodigy-feeding-a-rightwing-network

investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/the-sanctuary/

25Avalon

Delo says he has plenty of money for himself even giving a huge chunk to Reform. He also says he is doing it because he wants a better country for his grandchildren.

Good for him, hope he makes it a better country for all our grandchildren. It can hardly get worse.

^Labour are backed financially by the Unions. Not sure by how much. I could look it up I suppose. Conservatives receive ££millions too from wealthy donors.

If it’s legal and logged appropriately I don’t see a problem. Reform UK need the cash. From somewhere - to play along with the big boys.
^

I dont think I see much of a problem either.

Even Unions will be wanting something from Labour.

Electoral Commission records show that in over 25 years Labour has received just under £250 million in donations from trades unions; GMB, USDAW, UNISON, CWU, Unite, Musicians’ Union, Community. An average of £10 million a year.

Unions donate in small amounts at a time e.g the latest declarations in 2026 are £20,000 from GMB, £10,000 from USDAW, £28,000 from UNISON and so on.

In 2024, unions donated £6.6 million; in 2025 £11 million. As I said above, that comes from the union dues of millions of workers.

So far, in 2026, the Electoral Commission have recorded a total of just £2.7 million from unions.

It pales into insignificance compared to the £107 million that just two men have donated to Reform from their private wealth, most of that in the last two years including £72 million in a matter of days.

Good points.

But then you could ask, why have the Unions bothered at all?

fancythat

Good points.

But then you could ask, why have the Unions bothered at all?

You could, but it would have no relevance to this thread.

This hinges around the permissibility of non domestic donations. I don’t think anybody here knows any more than that, we will have to wait to find out whether these donations break the law if the bill going through parliament is approved, because if it is it enshrines backdated changes to the law around donations to March 2026 as I understand it.

This explains.
www.channel4.com/news/how-proposed-uk-government-legislation-could-impact-reforms-72m-donations

The op said "Personally I am disturbed by this, not because of such large donations, but because of the monetarising of politics.."

They are always monetarised.

I think people would prefer not to see that, if it is a Party they support.

If the OP really wants to discuss the overseas bit, that is a different matter.
I think there has been a thread or two recently about that bit.

The thread isn’t talking about domestic donations which meet the existing criteria, but about the potential of monetarisation of politics through non domestic donations.

You know how they say, 'follow the money'?
What about following the notion of giving support to Farage, all the way back to the original concept?
Where do you think the trail begins?

Shouldn’t the government have been concentrating on the bill to stop parties getting huge donations instead of Burnhams No10 North stuff….I thought it was one of the most important things going through parliament.

MayBee70

Shouldn’t the government have been concentrating on the bill to stop parties getting huge donations instead of Burnhams No10 North stuff….I thought it was one of the most important things going through parliament.

I don’t think that the No 10 North stuff is taking up Parliamentary time.

OTOH, the relevant bill going through Parliament places restrictions on the amount that nonresident British citizens can donate to a party both while non resident and for a period after they become resident. These restrictions will apply from March 2026, when the intention was announced.

So, if, when the bill passes into law (which it will because Labour have such a huge majority) these new donations to Reform have to be repaid to their donors, Reform will not be able to claim (as Tice is doing now) that these clauses have been inserted as a result of the massive donations as they were in place previous to the donations.

Clearly, Reform, with its contempt for and disregard of parliamentary business, its rules and procedures is unaware of this (as, it seems, are most journalists and members of the public)