Reform UK has now received £25M from crypto billionaire
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has now received over £25 million ($33.5 million) from Tether shareholder Christopher Harborne after the billionaire investor coughed up another £3 million ($4 million) this year.
The latest donation, reported by The Guardian, makes Reform the biggest recipient of donations in the first quarter of this year.
Alongside this donation, £4 million ($5.4 million) was also donated by BitMEX founder Ben Delo earlier this year. The pardoned crypto exec plays a major role in facilitating the social media presence of right-wing movements and politicians via a Westminster political hub.
Harborne, who’s based in Thailand and also uses the name Chakrit Sakunkrit, is a prominent shareholder in Tether and has also invested in Ethereum.
Donation Watch has logged Harborne’s overall donations to Reform, which started in 2019, at £25,190,000.
Farage has been under the microscope for the past month since The Guardian revealed that he’d kept a £5 million ($6.7 million) “gift” from Harborne a secret.
Read more: Nigel Farage faces official inquiry over £5M Christopher Harborne ‘gift’
It was given before Farage reentered politics in 2024, and questions have been raised about whether or not Harborne’s donations have influenced Farage or Reform’s stance on crypto regulation.
Farage claimed that the gift didn’t have to be declared, and that it was given to him for security purposes. He later changed his mind and said that it was actually a gift for delivering Brexit.
He also claimed recently that details of the payment were leaked after Russian spies hacked his phone.
Farage never reported the incident to the police, and instead the UK’s governing Labour party reported it. Reform only said that it was reported to the “relevant authorities.”
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also criticised Farage over his response to the revelations, and asked, “Why is the leader of Reform dodging questions about his donation and why did he keep it secret in the first place?”
Harborne’s gift is now subject to an inquiry by the UK’s Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and is being assessed for investigation by the Electoral Commission.
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