£72million to Reform: the donation rule Labour now wants to change
Two crypto billionaires have handed Reform UK £36million each, a combined £72million that is the largest set of donations in British political history. Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne are both British citizens who have lived overseas, and their money has now put the whole question of who is allowed to bankroll a political party back on the table.
The scale is easier to grasp next to what an election actually costs. Every party in the country spent £94.5million in cash between them at the last general election. The £72million from two men is roughly three quarters of that total, handed to a single party outside of a campaign.
It also dwarfs anything that came before. Until now the two biggest single gifts from an individual were £10million to the Conservatives from Lord John Sainsbury in 2022 and £9million from Christopher Harborne to Reform UK earlier in 2025. Both have been overtaken several times over in one go.
Under the rules as they stand there is no upper limit on what a domestic donor can give. The catch is what counts as domestic. Former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a donor has to have been living in the UK for at least a full calendar year before they qualify. Once that test is met, he said, there is no cap at all. If it emerges that either man only returned to the UK within the past year, Reform could be forced to hand the money back.
Reform UK says nothing improper has happened. Economic spokesperson Robert Jenrick said on Sunday that the donations were entirely in line with the law as it is, and as far as the party knows, the law as it is going to be in the future. Deputy leader Richard Tice argued the money simply lets Reform get on a level playing field with other parties, and compared it to the donations Labour receives from trade unions.
That comparison was rejected at the TUC congress in Brighton. General secretary Paul Nowak said no one should be told there is any similarity between care workers chipping in a few quid a year through their union and a party bought and paid for by billionaires.
The government is moving. Housing secretary Angela Rayner told ITV News that ministers would bring forward the Representation of the People Bill to change how donations are made, saying the point was to make sure there is no foreign interference and that democracy belongs to the people of this country rather than billionaires who think they can buy it. Alongside it, campaigners are calling for a £100,000 cap on individual gifts and tighter limits on British citizens who have been living abroad.
For ordinary households none of this arrives as a bill, but it decides whose phone calls get returned. When two people can put more into one party than every party spent fighting the last election, the balance of who is being listened to shifts, and the rules that allow it were written long before anyone had £36million spare.
