Reform UK’s crypto-billionaire backers could face tougher checks to demonstrate their continued presence in the UK after the party secured £72million over the weekend.
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Ministers have already taken steps to introduce a £100,000 ceiling on the sum of money that can be donated to political parties by anyone living abroad, which would also be enforced for the first 12 months after British expats come back to the UK.
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The changes would be backdated to March, prompting questions about whether Reform can retain the twin £36million contributions from Ben Delo, who was living in Hong Kong until recently, and Christopher Harborne, who was living in Thailand.
The Government is now looking at strengthening proposed legislation by introducing an “enhanced” residency test requiring donors to demonstrate they have lived in the UK for a certain period, with details to be set out shortly.
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Downing Street denied the proposed checks were a bid to prevent Reform UK specifically from using the £72million it received. Asked on Tuesday if it was, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “No, I completely reject that.”
No 10 insisted the plans were to ensure people who contribute vast sums to political parties have a stake in the UK. “There are multiple precedents under successive administrations, particularly to address the risk of people taking action immediately to avoid the new rules,” the spokesman said.
During a parliamentary debate as part of the second reading of the Government’s Representation of the People Bill in the Lords on Monday, minister Baroness Taylor said: “In addition to introducing a robust regime that ensures donors contributing above the £100,000 annual cap must demonstrate a genuine and ongoing connection to the United Kingdom, we are considering how we will strengthen the residency requirements including ensuring the length of time spent in the UK aligns with broader government policy.”
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Reform UK has already started channelling the funds into expanding its workforce, according to reports. This includes doubling its policy team from 10 to 20 staff and taking on 400 new field agents, with a new online channel also set to launch via YouTube.
Existing residency requirements already apply in areas such as immigration law, welfare and taxation. HMRC, for instance, classes individuals as UK residents if they have spent 183 days a year living in the country.
Nigel Farage has threatened to retaliate by cutting off Labour’s union funding if his right-wing outfit ever wins power. In an article for The Telegraph, he said: “I would just warn the Labour Party here and now: if you try and ban our donors, we in government would certainly ban funding from the trade unions. I don’t want to go down that route. But it is something we would be prepared to do.”
On Monday, the Reform leader acknowledged that his party’s record-breaking financial windfall could fall foul of Government attempts to crack down on overseas donors, and hit out at moves to apply the new legislation retrospectively.
Mr Farage told the BBC he believed the two donations were “compliant” with current legislation, but suggested they would no longer be permissible under changes proposed in the Representation of the People Bill, which has now entered committee stage.
When pressed on whether Mr Delo and Mr Harborne were UK residents as of March 25 — a detail that could have a direct bearing on the validity of their donations — he said: “I’m not going to go into their particular details.
“All I’m going to say is, with the law of the land as it stands, they are both compliant. Now, there is talk, and Angela Rayner was talking about this yesterday, there is talk of them retrospectively declaring donations illegally. Well, that simply cannot be.”
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The Government has pledged to establish a taskforce to address the issue of “mega-donors” after MPs urged ministers to go further by imposing a blanket cap that would also cover domestic donations within its draft legislation.
On Sunday, Communities Secretary Angela Rayner floated the idea that a broader cap remained on the table, expressing her desire to prevent people “being able to overpower and buy their way into democracy”. S
peaking at the TUC Congress on Monday, the Cabinet minister declared: “Nigel Farage’s sugar daddies made their money in crypto, but there’s nothing cryptic about their motives. They know full well that a Reform government will act in their interest, not the public interest.”