Reform UK won't confirm timing of £72m crypto donations as peers push donation caps
Two crypto billionaires give Reform £72million in one weekend… to create a “level playing field”… as a “philanthropic gift to the country” Or.. back in the real world… yet more brazen corruption and greed with a strong whiff of treasonous criminality. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
Mark Clay13Fatgarage will find out, as Elon Musk has, that no amount of money will save him from being vastly loathed by all right-thinking people. Quite the reverse, in fact.
David Nice9And the Mail on Sunday carries a feature by Farage on why this money is necessary to rule the country. Saw a man on a train from Norwich to Wymondham reading it. Made me mad for the rest of the day.
Antifa Collective8It's going the same way it happened in the US. Goverment is open for business. Just Pay 2 Play. We will look after you..
MnXalns5Dicy Tice tries to compare the donations with trade union donations. That argument is completely flawed. Union donations are much like crowd funding. I don't think two people should carry the same democratic weight as around 6.5 million workers.
PWCoghlan4It's all ok, apparently Farage has promised that his filthy rich donors won't receive peerages or govt contracts once they've elected him as PM
Dawn Robertson 🇪🇺🏴🇫🇷4There was as much philanthropy in the 'gift' as there is oxygen on Mars. In my opinion it is treason &, when the money, is taken back it should be given to charity.
Paul Stenton5Sarah accurately summing up ReFuk. How many "Ferraris" and how much "Security" do the Company need. The "level playing field" is looking more like a 1:5.
Patrick - Here for the craic❗️🤷🏼♂️😉2TBH it’s clear if these dodgy crypto billionaire wrong’uns sprayed anthrax over UK they’d call it a “philanthropic act”
I've done a deep-dive on the Harborne and Delo mega-donations over the weekend, and whether they may have to be handed back From my reading, a lot of unlikely things have to be true at once for the two £36m 'gifts' to be allowed once the (retrospective) Representation of the People Bill becomes law
Josiah Mortimer37🔴 Why Reform UK Could Be Forced to Hand Back Their £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo gave a record £36 million each over the weekend to Nigel Farage’s party, but a new law means they may have to take it all back bylinetimes.com/2026/09/14/w...
Sky Bloo 🏴4For those trying to establish when precisely Reform donor Ben Delo changed his country of residence to "the UK". He's a Director of a charity called The Sheila Coates Foundation. Companies House records show receipt of an electronic file on 18/06/26 notifying a change dated 4th June 2026. (1/2)
David4This is performative, they know the bribes will be judged invalid but it wont stop Farridge and reFUKKK plc endlessly whining about how the 'establishment' are out to get them.
Mags4Great work!! Thank you. 😊
Steve B4Thanks for this thread accompanying the article. A deep-dive is also anywhere Farage has a pint.
Susanita3Genuine question , how do you receive a crypto payment , do you have an account where you can ‘see’ it …..and how do you reverse a payment ? If you do have an a/c who can see it ? Can the Police ? I need a tutorial A101 🙄
Naomi Smith42"From my reading, under the Bill, anyone who moved back to the UK during 2026 remains capped at £100,000 until 1 January 2028. The clock starts ticking from the start of the calendar year before the donation, not from the date of return" @josiahmortimer.bsky.social
Malcolm Quinn16‘The retrospective element was already there in the bill, and runs back to the point of the Rycroft review into foreign interference. The rationale is that without it, donors would have rushed money in, ahead of the legislation. Which seems to be what Reform UK are trying to do’
TensegrityFan🐝🍯5The Reform spin, yet to emerge, will be that they are, yet again, victims of a grand ‘establishment stitch up’ by the ‘uniparty’. Nigel Farage’s sole modus operandi is as a barracking, grifting trouble-maker, whose only solution to any problem is to say ‘it’s their fault’. bsky.app/profile/josi...
Rose Byrd3Excellent analysis, and when we see the billions of dollars being poured into corrupt US politics, this is the key point: "...democracy is too important to be sold down the river, or to be treated as a plaything of the global ultra-rich." If Labour doesn't grasp the nettle 💯 now, we're finished.
Mark Howard3Yes, will be unlawful as they are to be paid in monthly installments. Source www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202... and they are alleged billionaires so will pay for the best legal advice. PR stunt written all over it and opportunity to be 'establishment victim'. The money was never real
Steve B3Josiah Mortimar: Reform and the mega-donors almost certainly knew this law was coming In April 2026, while still apparently based in Hong Kong, Delo wrote in The Telegraph that he would be moving back to Britain so he could contribute more to Reform. April is of course after the 25 March cut off.
Really interesting read. We need to nip this in the bud now and follow what the Canadians have done to clamp down on this
What I don't understand about Rayner's comments on banning crypto donations is, once more, that these *are not* donations in crypto, they're donations from crypto billionaires The donations aren't in crypto because pretty much nobody does anything in crypto (except money launders, drug dealers etc)
Dawny B24I genuinely don’t think they understand.
Stephen Kinsella14Can’t we just call them crypto fascists?
Gerri McGerriface8Does she not understand or is she being deliberately obtuse, just in case at some point, Labour get a donation from a crypto billionaire?
Ben Sowton6We’re run by idiots. Do try not think that all these billionaires talk to each other. This is an attempt to takeover the uk. They’ve got Russia and USA.
Soviet Mole6They're donations from Moscow, ultimately. Bit of washing, a dose of laundering, but it came from Moscow.
Peter Scott5But crypto billionaires have the moral compass that allows them to make money from the said drug dealers, money launderers and other dodgy actors
🚨Theresa May: "Crypto assets are used by people who want to avoid anybody knowing what they are doing." "And in terms of our democracy and political parties, donations to parties or candidates, we actually want the transparency of knowing who is doing that donation, who is making those donations."
Nick White8Never thought I would find myself in agreement with the appalling T May!!
kellmc.bsky.social7Crypto is just legal money laundering for the Epstien class.
stuart84.bsky.social3Apart from needlessly dragging us out of The Single Market and Customs Union which was nothing to do with the Referendum, she's right about crypto.
Sir Garfield De Umfreville, Baronet Bywell2She’ll be on their attack list now then. For once, Well done Dancing Queen!
Paul Da Pork Hunt & Mr Moo (Friends with Larry)2Leaving the EU also avoided the UK being part of the ATAD The main reason all the grifters wanted to leave and the Master profiteers (MPs) were rubbing their hands as well. Now The ATAD includes measures reporting for crypto assets! Hey but Brexit was all abut blaming the immigrants wasn't it?
Simon2Oh... I agree with Theresa May?
markingall.bsky.social15I can't believe I'm saying it, but I agree with Theresa.
Sam7I never thought I'd say this, but I agree with Theresa May. Maybe the strong and stable future is started by capping donations?
Rob Baron5Farage/Reform must know the bill capping Brit foreign based donors to £100k will be effective from March 2026. So one must ask what they think they will gain from announcing 2 £36m donations that will have to be paid back. Something very suspicious is going on. Do they think they will get sympathy?
Philip Amies3crypto = crime money being moved and laundered or a ponzi scheme, which is a crime
Scramble to stop Reform corrupting UK politics with vast amounts of foreign donations.
Simon S16The legislation has its second reading this week so it was already before Parliament and Reform would have known of its provisions when they accepted the donations. Not like Reform to do anything dodgy though is it...
Janey Llou (Jane to my friends)12Is this the same party that wants to retrospectively deport people?
michael-martin22.bsky.social11What hypocrites.I’m sure if the Labour government had received a similar amount of donations from a couple of crypto billionaires,RefUK would be up in arms over this.They hounded Angela Rayner out of office for a few thousand pounds and bitterly criticised Starmer over his free glasses.
Bright water7They should have listened more it was announced in March
PWCoghlan7In traditional omnibus measures, £72m would fund ~1700 NHS nursing posts for a year No doubt Mr Farage had this in mind as he forwarded his bank account details to his like-minded benefactors 🤔
w a r r e n5@chadbourn.bsky.social This problem has been obvious for a long time. It’s not been dealt with but allowed to rumble on. Last week Labour sent out begging letters citing the Reform donations as a reason to donate to them. Perhaps a little more legislative urgency is in order.
Gotta love the BBC and the British press for somehow managing to twist a story about Nigel Farage accepting obscene bungs from crypto millionaires into a debate about whether Labour should be accepting union donations hahahahaha
Gregk Foley44Every discourse used to orient around the Tories and their positions as the ‘natural party of government’ but since they’re currently a shambles it’s instead a much simpler but more brutal contest over who can be the biggest dipshit
Alan4We need to turn it into a debate about whether unions should be giving money to Labour, not whether Labour should accept it.
“Let’s distract attention from the investigations into our finances by having two whopping Crypto-based donations.” It’s not the most intelligent strategy to remove any doubt about their financial probity.
nickequipechasee #TuckFrump113I think the most interesting revelation of the Channel 4 film was that they are now entirely dependent on Foreign Donations, because no-one in the UK will donate to them (!) So foreign donations are now entirely routine to them, and the only difference with these two is their size.
Dan.G 🇬🇧🇪🇺6And just to ensure that its properly distracting, if they could arrange for one of these donations to be from a Crypto-bro that had been found Guilty of money laundering for sex trafikkers (its OK if Trump pardoned him), and the other one from the same person who 'gifted' Nigel £5m...
Antony Simon 🇬🇧🇿🇦2Either the Billionaires are thick or simply exist in headspace that cannot conceive such an action in the current environment looks shady as hell.
Andy1Maybe they are banking on (no pun intended) that the smokescreen caused by 2 borderline/barely legal/mega donations of £36 million will be enough of a distraction to the absolutely illegal £5 million personal bribe.
Theresa May describes crypto as 'currency of choice for criminal gangs', as she welcomes ban on its use for political donations - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
MaxAnglia1Good! Crypto is totally unstable.
Carole Flint 🇪🇺🏳️🌈1Crypto is still the currency of choice for criminal gangs and hostile state actors. It should be totally illegal for all purposes in the UK. Even owning crypto should be a crime.
Neil1Apart from criminal activity what is crypto for?
David6On this she is 100% correct
Bought lock, stock and barrel by billionaires, bankrolled puppet Nigel Farage is about to discover fair-minded voters won’t be sold as a job lot to his highest bidders. www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...
How can you trust a party that is bought & paid for by self-interested individuals. They are completely incapable of governing for the good of the country. What voters would be doing is giving the keys of the Treasury to Delo & Harbourne. Why would we want to do that?
ralphfarrugia.bsky.social2If I know the British they'll resent Reform thinking throwing money at propaganda will sway them. They don't like being patronised. Trust me.
P.J. Denyer1Lucky that absolutely no-one associated with Reform Ltd has ever had anything to go with breaking election spending limits or engaging companies that scrape data and put out dodgy social media targeted manipulation isn't it? Isn't it?
It's the crypto aspect (as well as size of the donations/ concentration of donation to a couple of individuals) which is of particular concern: regardless of the currency of the donation, what is the origin of all this money? What are the underlying activities upon which these fortunes are built?
DW1The fact that crypto is the ideal currency for money laundering & one of the donors has a conviction for money laundering & the other donor lives in Thailand & thus I assume avoids many UK taxes. Then the real origin of the money could be from literally anywhere, even rerouted from a foreign Gov
pmaurer.bsky.social1I made a comment on another post about this topic earlier, it also fits here: Reform, the party who promises to ban cash only barber shops because of the alledged risk of money laundering. Irony is not just dead, its corpse has been dug out and defiled a thousand times over.
