UK Funding Rules Target Reform UK's Crypto Backers
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- UK government announced Monday that its £100,000 cap on overseas donations, in force since March, will extend to a donor's first year of UK residency, with company donations now judged on five-year post-tax profits rather than revenue.
- Reform UK was the only major British party accepting cryptocurrency donations when the government banned such contributions in March, and the new rules build on that package.
- Christopher Harborne, the Thailand-based stablecoin issuer Tether stakeholder who holds a 12% stake, has donated £12 million to Reform UK and has since registered to vote in Britain.
- Ben Delo, the Hong Kong-based co-founder of BitMEX who was pardoned by President Trump in 2025 after pleading guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations, has donated some £4 million to Reform and stated his intent to return to the UK — a move that would automatically cap him at £100,000 for a year.
- A Sunday Times investigation alleges Nigel Farage failed to declare years of in-kind support — staff, security, housing — from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster and crypto gambler now seeking a Trump pardon and linked to the offshore Tether.bet casino.
- Nigel Farage, already under investigation over an undeclared £5 million ($6.7 million) gift from Harborne, denies the Cottrell benefits needed declaring.
Why it matters: Reform UK has leaned on crypto-wealthy foreign-based donors who collectively funneled at least £16 million into the party — the new one-year residency cap is timed to neutralize Ben Delo's publicly stated plan to relocate to Britain and scale up donations, hitting the party's funding model precisely as it positions to challenge Labour.
