Andy Burnham’s government could thwart Reform’s unprecedented £72m donations with retrospective restrictions on political donors that will include tough new residency requirements, ministers have announced. In a move that is likely to set off furious complaints from Nigel Farage’s party, the government will table amendments to legislation going through the House of Lords within weeks that puts the legality of Reform’s latest donations in doubt. Senior Labour and union figures had urged ministers to look again at party funding rules after Reform announced at the weekend that two cryptocurrency billionaires, Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, who have both previously been based overseas, were each donating £36m to the party.
Government sources, however, said the plans to strengthen the representation of the people bill had been under way for weeks, after MPs pushed for further action on domestic donations in the House of Commons. Under the proposals, which are expected to be tabled at the Lords committee stage of the legislation, individual donors will have to prove their ongoing physical presence in the UK, in line with the residence requirements applied to other areas of government policy, such as tax status. The extraordinary measure will be seen as a sign of the stakes attached to the donations, which would give Reform a vast advantage in organising supporters on the ground before the next election.
However, Farage acknowledged on Monday that Reform could fall foul of government moves to clamp down on foreign donors, although the party has said the £72m donations are in line with both current rules and those already voted on by MPs in the bill. The legislation currently restricts donations from expats to £100,000, which would also apply for the first 12 months after they return to the UK – backdated to 25 March this year. Ministers have already brought in a minimum residency requirement of the remainder of the calendar year in which they return, plus a further full year, meaning Reform may not be able to accept the £72m donations until January 2028.
Delo has been based in Hong Kong but said in April he would return to the UK to avoid restrictions, while Harborne was based in Thailand but is believed to have registered to vote in Hampshire in June. When asked if the two billionaires were UK residents as of 25 March, he replied: “All I’m going to say is, with the law of the land as it stands, they are both compliant.” Sharon Taylor, a Labour minister in the Lords, told peers that as well as donors having to demonstrate a “genuine and ongoing connection to the UK”, the government was also looking at further restrictions. Angela Rayner, speaking at the TUC, criticised Reform for suggesting its donations from cryptocurrency billionaires were equivalent to the contributions from trade union members to Labour.
The most highly regulated political funding we can have,” the communities secretary said. The head of Britain’s union movement, Paul Nowak, said the government must act to “stop the super-rich corrupting our politics”. But union sources had said there were “significant differences” between general secretaries on how to proceed.
Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, on Sunday broke ranks and backed a limit on individual domestic donations. But others, including GMB chief Gary Smith, fear it would lead a future rightwing government to curb union donations. Government sources said that calls from opposition parties for any changes to domestic donations to apply to the unions too were “not under active consideration”.
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