As £72m in donations makes its way to Reform UK’s bank accounts, consider what Nigel Farage said on the eve of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union a decade ago. He is also the same man who, when he debated with the then Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, in 2014, claimed to “represent the mercantile, trading, entrepreneurial end of society”, while his opponent “represents big banks, big government and big business”. To be clear, Farage’s political outfit is being bankrolled by two cryptobillionaires.
One of them is Ben Delo, who once developed high-frequency trading systems for JP Morgan. That investment bank was a particular bete noire of Farage: when it backed the Remain campaign, he savaged “the unholy alliance of big banks and big politics”. The other is the Thailand-based cryptobillionaire Christopher Harborne, who gave Farage his pre-election £5m gift and provided two-thirds of Reform’s funding – until now, that is.
Neither of them is the plucky small merchant evoked by Farage’s rhetoric. The man who denounced banks buying political influence is now dependent on two wealthy figures from the world of finance. Predictably, Reform says its benefactors want “nothing” in return for their colossal donations.
Yet the two businessmen who have just coughed up the biggest donations in British political history will surely be delighted with Reform’s plans to slash taxes on crypto assets and set up a “bitcoin reserve”. The political fraud that is rightwing “populism” is quite something to behold. These movements claim to champion the little guy against the elites.
Whether embodied by wealthy tycoon Donald Trump, whose relatives and friends are making a killing from his administration, or the privately educated millionaire ex-City broker Farage, the formula is straightforward. Dupe struggling people into believing their problems are caused by migrants, refugees and minorities – while championing the interests of the mega-rich who actually hold the power. Sure, British democracy has always come with heavy caveats.
Political parties and politicians have always received hefty donations from an economic elite that, to be clear, does not give money away without expecting a return. They can also rely on powerful lobbyists to advance their interests. Then there’s the “revolving door” through which politicians and civil servants leave public office for lucrative jobs with companies in the very industries they were previously responsible for overseeing and regulating.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
