Reform UK’s record £72m in donations from two crypto billionaires could be caught in a new bill which will apply retrospectively, a cabinet minister has suggested. Labour MPs have voiced anger on internal WhatsApp groups that the government did not act last week to restrict domestic donations in the elections bill after two donors – Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo – gave Reform UK a total of £72m over the weekend. Several MPs said they believed the government should have adopted an amendment by the Labour MP Stella Creasy to the representation of the people bill which proposed an annual cap of £100,000 on most domestic donations.
Although it had support of 60 MPs from various parties, it was not put to a vote after the government said it would ask a taskforce to look at the proposal. The communities secretary, Angela Rayner, said the bill, which will go to the House of Lords this week, would have restrictions on foreign donors and that the government was examining rules on domestic donations. The two donors who gave Reform UK £36m each have both previously been based outside the UK.
Harborne is a citizen of the UK and Thailand, while Delo recently moved back to Britain from Hong Kong. It is unclear when Delo returned to live in the UK and whether Harborne remains a resident of Thailand. As part of the new legislation, donations to political parties from Britons living abroad or those who have returned to the country within the past 12 months will be capped at £100,000 a year, with the rules backdated to March.
Reform UK has said it is confident the donations have been made within the law. The restrictions came after recommendations in a review of overseas donations by the former permanent secretary Philip Rycroft. The government has said the rules will apply from the date the Rycroft review was published – 25 March – if donors were registered as overseas electors, or if they were not registered then it would date back to 6 July which is the date the government announced its response to the review.
Rayner told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme that the government had been clear in its intentions since the review was published and had always said the changes would be retrospective. And that legislation is going through parliament at the moment. And we’ve also written to the Electoral Commission, which is an independent body, to see what further measures we need to take to protect our democracy,” she said.
Rayner – the minister responsible for the bill – said it was not targeted at individual donors or parties. The legislation is going through parliament as we speak, and that will be retrospective from the published date of that review. We didn’t know that donors were going to be putting that money in, and this isn’t about individual donors to a political party.
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