Billionaire Nick Candy has ditched the Tories, pledging to bankroll Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. with record-breaking funds in a bid to crown him Britain’s next prime minister. The Independent has more.
After speculation that X owner Elon Musk was about to give Reform £80 million, Mr. Farage has produced a different donor who intends to break fundraising records.
London property magnate Nick Candy, who previously bankrolled Tory campaigns including Shaun Bailey’s attempt to become London Mayor, has joined his famous Australian singer/actress wife Holly Valance as a member of Reform U.K.
Mr. Candy, who is friends with Mr. Farage, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, will be the public face of a number of wealthy donors and plans to celebrate his official defection by hosting a major lunch with other potential donors and Mr. Farage today in London.
Speaking to the Independent last night, he said: “I will also raise Reform more money than any political party in the U.K. has ever raised. Nigel will be the next PM of the U.K.”
He added: “There will be a massive exodus all coming to Reform.”
Mr. Candy has been close to Reform through his wife for a number of months and helped raise money for them and President Trump a few months ago. It is understood though that he had waited to see who won the Tory leadership election before making a final decision to jump parties.
His defection will be a blow to new leader Kemi Badenoch who has started her leadership having to fight off the continued threat from Reform both in the U.K. and in the way it affects Tory relations with Trump’s Republicans in the U.S.
The Conservatives have been forced to cut down on the number of staff because of a shortage of funds and another rich donor going elsewhere will be a problem.
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The Conservative party’s performance since they lost the 1997 election has been particularly dire; however, I can never forgive them for the socialist policies they have inflicted on the electorate over the past 14 years. The treasonous bastards deserve total annihilation.
Who are the rump of voters that are left still supporting them? If they’re on the “wet” (to my mind, socialist) wing why don’t they move their allegiance to the SDP or Labour? If they are voters who hold “traditional, old school” conservative views – what the hell are they doing still voting Conservative? Are they delusional sadomasochists?
The treasonous bastards deserve total annihilation.
Hear, hear.
Hear, hear! Nay, thrice hear, hear!
Very well put. My thoughts exactly.
Cheers, ToF
“why don’t they move their allegiance to the SDP or Labour?“
The SDP is a very small but principled party, are you sure you don’t mean the Liberal Democrats?
‘The Social Democratic Party (SDP) have promised to “reindustrialise” the UK as it published its manifesto.
The party traces its roots back to a splinter group of MPs who left Labour to form a new centrist party in 1981.
The party is standing 122 candidates at the general election and has done a deal to support Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in some parts of the UK.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjkk2e6jp8eo
My apologies, you are correct – I did mean the Lib Dems.
The centre parties have never appealed to me, so in my lazy mind’s eye they all merge into one “blob” and I start thinking of the Life of Brian sketch about the different activist groups – The People’s Front of Judea, the Judean People’s Front and the Judean Popular People’s Front.
Centre Parties stand for nothing waiting to move which ever way the wind blows.
All fighting one another…
Reindustrialise the UK.
Da! Da! Comrade – soon have tractor production up to 500 a week.
I would date it a bit earlier. They have been going in the wrong direction since they threw out Nrs Thatcher.
A little earlier. The day the Queen gave Royal Assent to the Tories European Communities Bill was the end of the traditional values of the Conservative Party.
Last 14 years? Try since the war.
In 1945 the Great British unwashed elected a Marxist Socialist Labour Government which behaved exactly as expected, taking just about everything into public ownership, taxed, spent and borrowed until finally society and the economy were trashed by 1979.
During that period there had been a number of Conservative Governments who just continued with the Socialist policies and did nothing to reverse any of them until Margaret Thatcher rolled back State ownership of everything (except the NHS), and put an end to profligate public spending, taxing and borrowing.
After her tenure the Conservative Party in Office became Continuity Labour once again.
I’d agree with that. Too many people seem to want a government that behaves and acts like the mum and dad they remember when they were 6.
Wasn’t the cry from the socialists at the time that big government in wartime had achieved miracles just think what it could do in peacetime?
The tories have brought this upon themselves by resolutely forswearing any kind of genuinely conservative policies.
They have truly lived down to their nickname, the stupid party.
Unfortunately whilst shafting themselves they have Also shafted us, the decent people of this country.
Good luck Reform.
Your country needs You.
And is finally waking up to the fact.
Is this the moment in history when fake conservatives are finally punished for only pretending to be conservative and actual real conservatives are allowed to prosper?
One can only hope.
Any day now Starmer will announce plans to ban as Treasurer or party donor anyone whose surname begins with a C.
I’m deeply uncomfortable with the notion that billionaire donors can (or think they can) make their political best-buddies into prime ministers etc. IMHO, this exemplifies everything that’s fundamentally wrong with the political system.
But if the other parties can be funded by rich donors and/or trade unions, it would be stupid for Reform to refuse to be funded by rich donors.
If we’re living in a plutocracy, ie, in a materialistic society controlled by super-rich individuals then, obviously, every mock-political group planning to compete seriously for mock-public offices of the mock-democracy needs some plutocrats backing it. I think we rather shouldn’t, however. Especially when considering that super-rich people often little more than children of other super-rich people.
The monarchs of former times were oftentimes also quite rich and (obviously) also children of more-than-affluent families but they were expected to have other qualities as well, principally that of a successful war leader. That’s how we became what we used to be. And I don’t really like what we have become since. We’ll all remain mostly happy though somewhat bored hedonists until we may finally live under Sharia law is not my idea of a gainful future for Europe.
It better than politicians getting richer while in office, as highlighted by Charlotte Gill.
I’m deeply uncomfortable with Unions, these days mostly Public Sector, funding the Labour Party …. and then their members both expecting and getting significant and unaffordable pay increases with no strings attached from a Labour Government.
Labour climate policies are underwritten by Renewables!-billionaires showering in a warm rain of state subsidies. As recently published here: Windfarms are subsidized to produce electricity with seriously uncompetitive operating costs. And businesses are subsidized to shield them from having to pay what generating the electricity they need actually costed. In the miracle world of current public financial transactions, even consumers pay taxes which are then used to subsidize their own deals with electricity generating companies.
Leaving this aspect aside, unions organizing collective financing of their own political party is just another facet of the plutocracy. There’s no party for all the people who aren’t unionized because they can’t afford one of their own.
In the last 27 years, I never had a job which was formally legal, ie, one where I actually had all the rights – especially regarding holidays – “every worker” is supposed to have. As I’m not part of the unionized workforce, this simply doesn’t matter to the parties supposedly all about worker rights, both in Germany and the UK, because what they really mean is rights of union members. It’s just tacitly assumed that worker equals union member and if not, that’s the fault of the people affected by it.
This is a great decision by entrepreneur Nick Candy, supported by his wife Holly, and may help neutralise the very real threat of the Pakistani Muslim Millionaire replacing Nigel as a “Bait & Switch” leader of the Reform Party, by packing the membership with his fellow Pakistani Muslims, after he quickly “revised” the Reform Party rules to enable just that. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan— is that why the Indigenous Ethnic Europeans voted for Brexit, in order to be taken over by Pakistan??? Shouldn’t we just re-label the map of the British Isles as “Outer Pakistan” now, rather than waiting for the inevitable?
Warning Will Robinson: oodles of cash doesn’t win elections.
The Harris-Democrat campaign spent ($1.2 billion) over three times what the Trump campaign spent (~$380 million) and lost.
I’m afraid I don’t believe either of the Candys are remotely good eggs
Said without a hint of evidence!
Look at who bought the properties in Knightsbridge. Mainly Middle Eastern buyers I believe. Echos of the Amanda Wakely Barclays Bank deal.
Do tell…………
Reform can make serious gains by using such large donations to deploy informative advertising. Here’s a start: A widespread campaign to educate the public that the vast majority of countries in Asia and the Middle East (now the source of most of the UK’s immigration) convert hardly any employment visas into citizenship but rather maintain their core cultures and visa issuance for the benefit of their citizens. They also leverage huge numbers of people on worker visas who are usually paid massively less than their local populations. In such a world it is plain insane for the UK to solve it’s demographic issues by granting citizenship to so many people. This creates one massive Ponzi scheme and multicultural shambles. The solution is large scale employment visas which can be renewed but rarely convert to citizenship. It works extremely well elsewhere but astounds me as to how few, even well educated, people in the UK do not understand this global reality about employment visas and their usual limitations.
It means the Education Industry can focus on ‘more important’ goals.
‘The Conservatives have been forced to cut down on the number of staff because of a shortage of funds and another rich donor going elsewhere will be a problem.’
The Conservative Party is finished. It will never be forgiven for issuing 4 million visas over the last 3 years.
Johnson was elected PM specifically to stop the flood of immigrants, which was a mere trickle when he received his 80-seat majority in 2019.
Does anyone know of any explanation, let alone a satisfactory one, of what has ensued? Ninety percent of the immigrants who have come in the last 4 years are low-skilled, destined for benefits or the minimum wage. Even they have been permitted to bring unlimited numbers of dependents who are not required to speak even elementary English.
This has been an intentional flood, a dam deliberately kicked through. Johnson even abolished the restriction that jobs had to be advertised in the UK first. And no planning for additional infrastructure and housing has taken place.
The Tory Flood, as history will dub it, is an utter betrayal, a radical altering of the social composition of Britain expressly flouting the wishes of its people.
What did Johnson think he was doing? Rubbing our noses in multiculturism? What part did his various meetings with Gates play, at a time when he was said to be unhappy with his finances?
Nobody has ‘ditched the Tories‘. The Tories ditched their supporters; fundamental difference….