This week, two crypto billionaires announced that they would each be supporting the Reform Party with substantial donations worth £1 million per month, each month until the next general election. The combined total of £72 million – each greater than any earlier single donation to a UK political party – has enraged many commentators. But behind this rage are levels of hypocrisy and special pleading that are astronomical.
On Friday, Ben Delo announced in a Telegraph article that he was “giving Reform millions to make the next election a fair fight”. Labour, explained Delo, were burning nearly £4 million a month, and the Tories nearly £2.3 million. Reform, despite having spent most of the 25 months since the election leading in opinion polls, was only managing to raise £1.8 million. The party with a solid chance of forming the next government certainly needs to develop its policy platform and, at the very least, if it is to form the Opposition, also needs to communicate with the public. “I want a fair fight and a level playing field”, he concluded. Not to be outdone, fellow businessman Christopher Harborne announced on Saturday that he would match Delo’s contribution.
This has ignited much hostile commentary about British politics being biddable. The Sunday papers featured the stories on their front pages. “£72 million gift to Reform stuns politics,” claimed the Sunday Times. “72 million to buy Britain ‘could be illegal’,” whinged the Observer, adding that “Crypto billionaires’ donations to Reform may break new law,
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Retrospective legislation is illegal in Article 7 of the Human Rights Act of ECHR law.
Best pray for a reform restore win…..or the uk as we know it will continue its downfall and decay.
All’s fair in love and war and there is little doubt the left is at war with Reform, so anything that can be done including retrospective legislation to defund them will be used. Heaven forbid they actually have a level playing field. Unthinkable!
The entire Establishment is at war with Reform, not just the lefties.
The idea that people can be persuaded to vote a certain way by people who have money is incredibly patronising and just assumes people have no principles.
Well, Labour judges everyone else by their own standards.
“… substantial donations worth £1 million per month, each month until the next general election. “
Richard Tice’s partner has said that is not the case. The money has been given in one lump sum to beat the new legislation Labour is rushing through which would limit donations to £100 000 per year.
So according to Angela Reyner those donations could be illegal. That is they could be against a law that doesn’t yet exist, that hasn’t passed through parliament, and that she wants to amend and rewrite as we speak just to make sure those donations are illegal. She says that she wants to do this to protect democracy.
She also wants to protect democracy by scanning all your messages and documents through the Online Safely Act, and censoring the internet through legislation to promote approved news outlets. Bless her, she really is desperate to protect democracy.
Excellent article with strong, well evidenced, counter arguments. Thank you. Any chance of getting more than 1% of the literate population to read it? Or even 0.1%?
More concerning to me is the thought that a law can be applied retrospectively!
I thought back-dating legislation was not a principle in English law.
That was the olde England you’re thinking of.
It isn’t!
Yes. I’m expecting the Khant to retrospectively apply a 20mph speed restriction from 1 January 2026 across the whole of Greater London and then fine every driver for breaking the law.
According to the Electoral Commission, since 2001 Labour has received around £368 million in reported donations, £130 million of this from unions. The Tory party has received £438.7 million in the same period. Even the Lib Dems around £100 million. No wonder they don’t want the established order broken up. It’s little more than a cartel with similar big government, net zero and immigration policies.
So Andy could scupper those donations simply by calling a GE asap?
How about a law banning donations to political parties from trade unions?
By the way, this will be retrospective … all the way back to 1900!
UK voters
I don’t believe we can stop the support mentioned in this article of the Uniparty / Greens, but we can counter it. There are c. 47.5m voters in the UK. According to recent polls, intention to vote Reform is running at c. 23% which equates to 10.9m voters.
Current membership of Reform is 268,000, and cost of membership- £25p.a (that’s less than 50p a day!) If we assume a 50% membership, i.e. 5.45m that equates to £136.25m, dwarfing the recent big donations, all from UK residents, below any “maximum” donation and “legal”.
Looking at the big ticket items Reform has already mentioned in it policies, this is where want a Government to focus;
Immigration – The annual cost to keep an irregular migrant or asylum seeker in the UK is approximately £41,000 per year. The total annual cost of the UK asylum system is around £8.0 billion, or £234 per income taxpayer.
Civil Service – The total estimated cost of UK Civil Service salaries is approximately £21 billion per year
Healthcare – The total government-financed expenditure for UK healthcare was £280 billion in 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics
Net zero – The total gross cash cost of reaching Net Zero in the UK by 2050 is estimated at roughly £7.6 trillion according to modeling… Read more »
And those of us who just want to be left in peace to lead our lives as we see fit – who is batting for us?
The UNIParty, enforcers of law they make up retrospectively when they realize someone is doing better then them, be it in political donations or private company profits.
Yet millions will still vote for them.
Depressing isn’t it
It depends what that means. Are people voting for those they want or those most likely to keep out those they most detest? The choice is likely to be a difficult one.