Reform UK fundraising surges on crypto billionaire donations

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Highlights

Reform UK raised $9.4 million in Q1 2024, surpassing both the Labour and Conservative parties' $5.4 million each, driven by large crypto-linked donations.
Christopher Harborne donated $4 million and Ben Delo $5.4 million to Reform UK, with Harborne’s total contributions reaching $20 million over the last year.
Reform UK’s Q1 fundraising is six times higher than last year’s $2 million, reflecting surging political financing and greater crypto industry influence in UK policy.

Donations lift first-quarter fundraising

As reported by the Electoral Commission and Cointelegraph, Reform UK received 7 million British pounds, or about $9.4 million, from two crypto-linked billionaires this year, putting its total fundraising ahead of other UK political parties.

Christopher Harborne, who has a stake in stablecoin issuer Tether, donated $4 million, while BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo gave $5.4 million. The Labour Party and the Conservative Party each received about $5.4 million in the first quarter of the year.

Reform UK has positioned itself as a pro-crypto party. It became the first UK political party to accept donations in Bitcoin, and Farage has proposed cutting capital gains tax on crypto to 10% from 24%, while also urging the Bank of England to establish a Bitcoin reserve.

Crypto influence and scrutiny grow

Delo is a first-time donor to the right-wing populist party, while the latest contribution brings Harborne’s total support to $20 million over the past year. Harborne also separately gave Farage a $6.7 million personal gift that is under parliamentary standards scrutiny over whether it should have been registered.

Farage has said he did not need to declare that money because it was given before he became a member of parliament and was used for personal security. He later said the gift was linked to his campaigning for the UK to leave the EU.

Reform’s first-quarter fundraising is six times higher than in the same period last year, when it received $2 million. Total funding across all parties in the quarter has also more than doubled from a year earlier, reflecting broader growth in political financing as the crypto industry increases its efforts to influence policy in the UK and the U.S.

Our earlier coverage of frozen UK tax allowances explained how long-standing threshold freezes have quietly increased the real tax burden as inflation erodes the value of reliefs for inheritance, savings, rental income and pensions. The analysis highlighted specific allowances that have remained unchanged for years or decades and argued that regular reviews and uprating could make the system fairer and better aligned with current economic conditions.

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