All things being equal, pretty much any political strategist would welcome a £72m war chest; a sum higher than the combined spending of every major party at the 2024 general election. But all things are not equal, and with such a huge amount comes risk.
Reform UK has been vocal in its arguments that two sudden £36m windfalls from billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne merely “levels the playing field” with the bigger parties when it comes to funding.
In one sense this carries some weight. Of the £65m-ish spent in 2024 by the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Reform parties, less than a 1oth was used by Nigel Farage’s party. Labour’s fighting fund was more than five times bigger.
But these are unprecedented sums, donated at an unlikely time – an election is almost three years away even if Reform is convinced that Andy Burnham could seek his own personal mandate as early as next May.
The donations give Reform huge scope to expand its electoral machine. They could fund the employment of a new staff member in every UK constituency until the election, though their impact is magnified by the fact that parties devote resources to a much smaller number of target seats.
So, what is the downside? There are two. The first is that every time Farage presents Reform as the voice of ordinary Britons, his opponents can argue it is in reality the plaything of people who are wealthy and disconnected from everyday life to a degree almost unimaginable to most voters.
Delo and Harborne are strikingly similar: cryptocurrency billionaires who are either based overseas – Harborne in Thailand, although he is electorally registered in the UK – or formerly so – Delo recently returned to the UK from Hong Kong.
Opponents will also make much of the fact that Reform’s pledges to liberalise crypto rules in the UK appear likely to make both men even richer, even though the party argues this was its stance before it attracted such donors.
The second, and arguably bigger, concern for Reform is the renewed focus this places on Farage’s own finances, and the perceived cloud of sleaze which has in recent months become more dense around both him and the party.
As well as donating large sums to Reform previously, Harborne also gave £5m to Farage, a gift that Farage failed to declare on entering parliament, and which is being investigated by the parliamentary standards watchdog as a potential breach of MPs’ rules.
Farage only disclosed the gift when the Guardian revealed it in April, prompting not just the standards investigation and the slightly quixotic byelection he fought to supposedly clear his name, but a subsequent period when the Reform leader skipped his previous timetable of regular press conferences to avoid awkward questions.
Things became even worse for Farage on the eve of Reform’s annual conference a week ago when undercover footage broadcast by Channel 4 News seemingly showed senior Reform officials trying to avoid electoral laws on foreign donations, with Farage himself apparently informed.
The party has denied any wrongdoing, but two key Farage aides – Dan Jukes, his de facto chief of staff, and James Orr, Reform’s head of policy – have been suspended, and police are investigating any potential wrongdoing.
Optimistic Reform officials might argue privately that £72m could buy enough advertising to blitz any negative coverage, and it is notable how senior figures, such as the deputy leader, Richard Tice, insist the party is“at war” with traditional media.
But is is more complex than that, especially under Westminster’s first-past-the-post electoral system. If a party hopes to win it must not only convince its base to turn out and vote, but not be so toxic so that other voters unite to stop it.
Polls show increasing numbers of voters see Reform and its leader as not just undesirable but shifty, even dishonest, and they are willing to vote however is necessary to stop Farage entering No 10.
Will another £72m in donations from extremely rich men make such perceptions worse? Very possibly. And is that something Reform could do without? Definitely.
