£36million more for Reform UK as MPs back a £100,000 donations cap

Reform UK has been handed a second £36million donation in the space of two days, this time from the crypto investor Christopher Harborne, who was already the party's biggest backer. The gift matches the record sum given a day earlier by another cryptocurrency billionaire, Ben Delo. The party says it has now taken more than £86million in donations so far this year.

Harborne, a former Conservative donor, said he had been giving Reform around £1million a month before deciding to match Delo's cheque. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he described the money as a philanthropic gift to the country, intended to help the party prepare for government, and said he hoped others would join in.

He said he expected nothing personally in return, no peerage and no change of policy, only a party that is ready for government, adding that he had already accumulated enough wealth for the rest of his life.

The money lands while Nigel Farage faces a parliamentary investigation into whether he should have declared a £5million gift from Harborne, handed over shortly before Farage was first elected to the Commons in 2024. His party denies any wrongdoing.

Separately, detectives from the Metropolitan Police are investigating after an undercover report broadcast by Channel 4 News appeared to show senior Reform figures discussing how to disguise donations from foreign sources. The report overshadowed the party's annual conference last week. Reform again denies wrongdoing and says it will co-operate fully with the inquiry.

The rules covering this kind of money may be about to change. MPs last week backed measures including a £100,000 cap on donations from overseas and a suspension of party funding through cryptocurrency. The draft legislation still has to clear the House of Lords before it becomes law, so neither limit applies yet.

Ministers argue the changes will stop foreign money influencing British elections. Reform says the measures are a bid to choke its funding. Farage said he was honoured and humbled that Delo and Harborne had shown such confidence in the party, and that their generosity means Reform can fight the next general election on a level playing field.

Labour chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said Farage cannot buy his way out of the scandal his party is in, or out of the police investigations into its finances, and called on Reform to come clean with the public. Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokesperson Lisa Smart said Farage was trying to buy his way into Number 10 and repeated her party's call for a cap on political donations.

For households watching every bill, the issue is not whose name is on the cheque. It is that one individual can move £36million into a political campaign in an afternoon while the rules designed to limit exactly that are still sitting unfinished in Parliament. Whoever ends up setting the tax and energy policy that arrives on your doormat, it is worth knowing who paid for the campaign that put them there.