Reform UK receives £9m donation from billionaire businessman Christopher Harborne
Reform UK has received the largest ever political donation from a single living person as Thai-based billionaire Christopher Harborne injected £9m into the party.
Reform’s precursor organisation, the Brexit Party, previously received donations from Harborne in 2019 and 2020 but it had not yet received donations directly from the billionaire.
His £9m donation in August was nearly double the level the Conservative Party received in total donations over the third quarter of the year.
Labour meanwhile received some £1.9m over the three-month period, according to electoral commission data from Thursday.
The next biggest donation from an individual to a political party was £1m sent from game entrepreneur Jeremy Elliott San to the Tories.
Reform also received significant sums from its treasurer Nick Candy, the luxury property developer, the investor William Alan McIntosh, and Sotheby’s International Realty, which is led by the Dubai property investor George Azar.
It was also given a £50,000 donation by Viscountess Rothermere, the wife of the owner of the Daily Mail.
Harborne’s mega donation has helped to boost Reform’s funds as Nigel Farage, policy chief Zia Yusuf and other key officials deliver a series of pre-Budget press conferences focused on their plans for the UK economy.
Who is Reform donor Christopher Harborne?
A report in the Financial Times suggested this week that donors to Reform had heard about Farage’s plans to strike an electoral pact with the Conservatives ahead of the next General Election but the party leader has since denied making those suggestions.
Harborne’s extra funding could help to shore up party funds for the coming months, with Reform hoping it can maintain its comfortable lead in the polls.
His donation is second only to a £10m sum left by Lord Sainsbury in his will to the Conservative Party two years ago.
Harborne is most well known for his investments in Tether, which launched the biggest stablecoin more than 10 years ago, and the crypto exchange Bitfinex.
He is also the largest shareholder of the UK defence company Qinetiq and founded the aviation fuel company AML Global.
Harborne has been an active political donor in the past, giving Boris Johnson’s office £1m over two years ago and travelling with the former Prime Minister on a trip to meet Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine in late 2023.
He also funded Farage’s trip to the US to attend Donald Trump’s second inauguration in February this year.