A Bit Rich

Did Christopher Harborne give Nigel Farage five million pounds “so that I would be safe and secure for the rest of my life”, or “as a reward for campaigning against Brexit for 27 years”? If the former, then why did Farage turn down free Police protection? What did he not want the Police to see? He need not have worried, since they managed not to see the drug dealers by appointment to Prince Harry. Or might both explanations be true? Might Harborne have given Farage at least two personal gifts, which are tax-free, of five million pounds? Might anyone else in Reform UK also have taken such gifts from Harborne? Might Farage or anyone else have taken them from other generous benefactors? Welcome to scrutiny, as UnHerd exemplifies:

Several outlets have picked up on the news that Christopher Harborne, the Thailand-based businessman who has donated sizeable sums of money to Reform UK, has entered the Sunday Times Rich List for the first time at No. 6. Yet a study of the full list highlights several other billionaires with close ties to Nigel Farage’s party. After years of the Conservatives being the party of wealth, has Reform become the natural home of Britain’s ultra-rich?

Shortly before he announced his intention to stand as a candidate in the 2024 general election, Farage accepted a personal gift of £5 million from Harborne, with the Parliamentary Standards Committee this week launching an investigation into whether the Reform leader broke Commons rules by failing to declare the payment. Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Harborne, who has an estimated wealth of £18.2 billion, gave £9 million to Reform UK the following year. It remains the largest ever single donation by a living person to a British political party. Later in 2025, he donated a further £3 million to Reform.

Higher up this year’s Rich List, occupying second spot with a fortune of just under £28 billion, are brothers David and Simon Reuben, whose income principally derives from property and data centres. Having donated almost £1 million to the Tory Party since 2008, the Reubens this year gave £100,000 to Reform UK. Also in the top 10 is Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe, who reportedly met with Farage earlier this year. In February, after the billionaire claimed in an interview that Britain had been “colonised by immigrants”, the Reform leader said: “I believe, firmly, that Jim Ratcliffe is right.”

At No. 14 in the Sunday Times list is Anthony Bamford, the boss of construction firm JCB who last year donated £200,000 to Reform. At the same time, he gave an equivalent sum to the Conservatives. Thanking JCB, Farage said: “They’re giving us some money because they know we are pro-entrepreneurship, they know we are pro-startup, they know that we are pro-small business.” In 2024, Bamford funded an £8,000 helicopter trip for Farage to tour a JCB site, and the company was a prominent exhibitor at Reform’s annual conference the following year. Bamford’s companies had previously donated over £10 million to the Tories since 2007. Having been made a peer by the party, he retired from the House of Lords in 2024.

Since it was founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, Reform has received more than £35 million from 333 donations. The largest single donor is Harborne with £22.2 million. According to data from the Electoral Commission, Reform received more money in donations than any other political party last year. Its total of £10.3 million was almost four times the amount the Labour Party received in donations, and more than twice as much as the Conservative tally.

Never having claimed to be a trade unionist, Malcolm Offord MSP says that he will donate his Holyrood salary to something that is rather amusingly called the Badenoch Trust. But that charity has precisely two trustees, namely Lord Offord himself since its registration in 2007, and only since 2021 his PA at his private equity company. Last year, that Trust’s total income was £1,252. The basic annual salary for a Member of the Scottish Parliament is £77,711. Out of the public purse, Offord’s election has increased sixty-twofold the income of a charity that he has completely controlled for the whole of its existence. And then there is the JCB Pothole Pro, which is clearly a topnotch product from its use by councils of all colours, but which was namechecked on the election leaflets only of the party to which JCB had given £200,000. Who knew that Reform was such a cheap date? Harborne must be kicking himself.  Oh, yes. Welcome to scrutiny.