Shaun Roberts, Director of Campaigns, Unlock Democracy

Big money donations to political parties are doing huge damage to trust in our politics. 

And when a politician claims that the donor expects nothing back for their millions, it simply doesn’t pass the sniff test for the average voter. When Unlock Democracy polled the British public on this last month, fewer than 1 in 14 voters believed the donor didn’t expect anything in return.

Despite Labour’s election promises to clean up politics, the Government is refusing to implement a cap on political donations from individuals and companies in the UK. 

While it might be Reform UK’s mega donors grabbing the headlines right now, all of the major British parties, with the exception of the Green Party, have benefited from multi-million pound donations.

In the first quarter of 2026, three individuals gave over £8 million. Those three people were responsible for £2 out of every £5 received by political parties. 

To the public it looks like our politics is for sale and that the interests of ordinary voters come in a poor second place.

Which brings us to Steve Reed, the Minister in charge of the Representation of the People’s Bill. Amendments calling for the implementation of a cap on donations have been submitted, but the Government seems likely to whip Labour MPs into voting them down. 

We wonder what the voters will make of that? 

Steve Reed himself has said some interesting things on this subject. The Government has at least accepted the need for a cap on donations from overseas voters following the recommendations of the Rycroft Review into foreign interference in our politics. 

Steve Reed described the overseas donations cap of £100,000 as ‘pretty generous’. He went on to point out that Rycroft had said that UK voters living overseas shouldn’t be allowed to make ‘game-changing donations into British politics’.

Which then begs the question – why should anyone be allowed to make game-changing donations to British politics?

That’s something Steve Reed is yet to answer.

The Government’s donation cap on overseas voters has already been exposed as hopelessly ineffective – one billionaire Reform UK donor who lives overseas has already said he’ll move back to the country so he can keep on giving to Reform UK.

It’s not even clear if the Government’s new rules on company donations will prevent Elon Musk from making the kind of mega-donation that’s been threatened in the past. 

The only solution to this is a cap on all political donations. 

There is overwhelming public support for this and very little public opposition. YouGov polling in December showed that barely 1 in 8 voters support the current system of allowing unlimited donations to political parties. 

Yet that’s where Steve Reed and the Government currently stand. 

We hope he and they will think again. 

The lack of trust in our politics is corrosive. Capping donations is a concrete measure that will show the public that things are changing. 

Politics should not be for sale – let’s get big money donations out of our politics once and for all.

The post It’s time for a cap on donations: Will Steve Reed and the Government act? appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Reform has cashed in on a further £7 million in donations from two billionaire crypto investors, the latest Electoral Commission figures reveal.

A sizable chunk of these donations came from Thailand-based crypto investor Christopher Harborne and Hong Kong-based Ben Delo, who co-founded a cryptocurrency trading platform.

Harborne donated another £3 million to Nigel Farage’s party in January, on top of the £12 million he donated in 2025.

Delo, who vowed to return from Hong Kong to the UK to donate to Reform after the government put a cap on donations from overseas at £100,000 a year, donated £2 million in January, and a further £2 million in March.

While receiving large sums from crypto investors, Reform has become the first political party to accept cryptocurrency donations, Farage has promoted Tether, the crypto firm Harborne has a 12% stake in, and committed to creating a state-owned bitcoin reserve.

Reform also received £1.1 million from David John Grainger, a partner at a life sciences venture capital firm called Medicxi. 

Donations to Reform far outstripped the sums of money donated to any other party. In the first quarter, Labour received the second largest amount of donations, amounting to £4 million.

The Lib Dems received just over £2 million in donations between January and March this year.

This comes after Lib Dem MP Roz Savage asked Keir Starmer to commit to a cap on political donations at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday. 

Starmer said in response: “We will do whatever is necessary to protect our democracy from foreign influence and dirty money.”

Referring to the undeclared £5 million gift that Farage received before running to become an MP, the PM added: “But the £5 million question still remains”

“Why is the leader of Reform dodging questions about his donations, and why did he keep it secret in the first place?”.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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The Good Law Project has warned that the aims of donors pumping money into Reform UK go beyond electing Nigel Farage as prime minister, but changing UK culture.

Agustina Oliveri, head of digital, campaigns and communications at the Good Law Project, told an LFF Live audience last night that “it’s not a coincidence” that US-based conservative groups are now funnelling money into UK politics.

In a discussion about ‘How to clean up politics’, Oliveri said: “This money that is coming into Reform and is coming into the UK is not just coming to put Farage in government, it’s coming to change the narrative and the culture around certain things that they don’t want.”

She said their agenda includes rolling back the rights of the LGBTQI+ community, trans people and women, as well as the right to protest and free speech.

She gave the example of how the Alliance Defending Freedom, a US-based conservative Christian group which was instrumental in overturning Roe v Wade in 2022, spent more than £1.4 million on its activities in the UK last year.

The Roe v Wade case was a landmark ruling in 1973 which made abortion legal across the US. 

Oliveri said of the ADF: “It’s not a coincidence that they’re now plugging money and interfering in the UK.”

She added: “It’s not a coincidence that suddenly the UK, which is quite progressive in their abortion laws and in their abortion rhetoric, is suddenly scaling back and talking about how abortion is a bad thing.”

Looking ahead to the next general election in 2029, Oliveri said the Good Law Project is focusing on protecting free speech.

“The free speech that we actually know is free speech and not the free speech of the far-right, and that Farage and his friends think free speech is,” she said.

The campaign group is also prioritising the right to protest, which Oliveri noted “is being curtailed and stopped even by the Labour government”. 

You can watch the full LFF Live interview here. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Ben Delo, a billionaire convicted in the US of failing to implement anti-money laundering controls in his cryptocurrency business, has said he has donated £4 million to Reform.

Delo, who currently lives in Hong Kong, said he made the donation to Nigel Farage’s party before the government placed a £100,000 cap on donations to political parties by Brits living abroad last month. 

Writing in the Telegraph, he has said he is moving back to the UK so he can donate millions more to Reform and  “build a war chest” for the party without being subject to the cap on expat donations.

Alongside another billionaire Reform donor Christopher Harborne, Delo also made his fortune from cryptocurrency. 

Farage has advocated for deregulating cryptocurrency to make the UK a global leader in cryptocurrency.

Last May, he announced at a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas that Reform would become the first political party to accept donations in cryptocurrency.

Delo, co-founder of trillion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, was convicted in the US in 2022. He pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement adequate anti-money-laundering controls at the firm. 

In his Telegraph article, he wrote: “I helped build one of the world’s first major crypto trading platforms, fell foul of US regulators, accepted a plea bargain and a civil fine for a regulatory failing that isn’t even a crime in the UK, but then ended up being pardoned by Donald Trump, the US president, anyway.”

Last month, a Guardian investigation found that Delo had given support to Restore Britain founder Rupert Lowe, allowing him to use the Sanctuary, his base in Westminster Abbey. 

Delo has also connected with more mainstream figures including the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, and the former cabinet minister Michael Gove.

Image credit: Anne Schwarz – Creative Commons

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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The Prime Minister has announced a temporary ban on cryptocurrency donations to political parties.

It comes after MPs were told to ban crypto donations and to cap expat donations to prevent foreign interference in British politics.

Pro-democracy campaigners and MPs have warned that crypto currency donations pose a risk to the integrity and transparency of our political system.

Their sources are often harder to trace, with the UK Government’s 2025 National Risk Assessment identifying cryptoassets as a growing risk to both money laundering and terrorist financing due “to the anonymity, speed, and…global reach of transactions”.

The findings came as part of an independent review into foreign financial influence which also found that Iran, Russia and China are trying to “cause harm” to the UK’s democracy.”

The ban on crypto donations will cause a headache for Nigel Farage, given that Reform accepted a Reform has also received £12m in political donations from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and last year became the first main party in the UK to accept donations through bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Sir Keir told MPs at PMQs that the report “sets out the stark threat posed by illicit finance.

“I can tell the House we will act decisively to protect our democracy, that will include a moratorium on all political donations made through cryptocurrencies. I hope that will be welcomed.”

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Reform UK received a further £3 million from billionaire crypto investor and Tory donor Christopher Harborne in November last year, according to new Electoral Commission figures.

Reform received nearly £5.5 million in donations in the last quarter of 2025, but Harborne’s donation was the largest single sum that the party received during the period.

In August last year, Reform received a record £9 million from Harborne, the largest ever single donation to a political party in history.

Labour’s elections bill will tighten up some of the rules on foreign donations to prevent figures like Elon Musk from using their money to interfere in UK politics. 

Under the proposed rules, foreign companies will only be allowed to donate to UK political parties if they have British owners or make enough revenue in the UK to donate.

However, democracy campaigners say one of the bill’s key shortcomings is that it does not include a cap on political donations.

Chief Executive of Unlock Democracy, Tom Brake, criticised the current political donations rules, saying they give mega donors an “outsized influence”.

Brake said: “Voters, not donors, should be top-of-mind for politicians. But with donations of this size comes a level of access and influence that is simply unavailable to 99% of ordinary voters.

“There is lots of good news in the Representation of the People Bill, but sadly nothing at all about capping donations from UK-registered individuals. Until this changes, politics – and by extension us, as voters – will be subject to the outsized influence of mega donors.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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