Reform UK defends £72m crypto donations as legal amid proposed UK donation law changes

Robert Jenrick has said Reform UK believed that £72m in donations it has received from two cryptocurrency billionaires were "entirely in line with the law".

The party's economic spokesman told the BBC that he did not expect that it will have to return any of the money from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, who are both British and have spent time living overseas.

The government is seeking to change the law on donations to UK political parties from British expats, including a £100,000 cap backdated to 25 March.

"These two donations are entirely in line with the law as it is and, as far as we know, the law as it's going to be in the future," Jenrick said.

As well as limiting how much British citizens can donate to political parties from overseas, the government has proposed a minimum residency period in which the £100,000 cap would still apply for those who move back to the UK.

This would be in place for the remainder of the calendar year and the following calendar year after the person returns.

Housing Secretary Angela Rayner told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that the rule changes would apply retrospectively and anyone not complying with them would have "to return that money".

Rayner added she was not commenting specifically on Delo and Harborne as she does not "understand" their "circumstances".

Answering questions about the donations following Rayner's remarks, Jenrick said: "It might be that Angela Rayner or the government keep trying to change the law to make it even harder for people to donate to Reform, nothing would surprise me.

"But, as it stands, we believe these are entirely in line with the law."

BBC News has been told that both Delo and Harborne have returned to the UK. Delo is understood to have been back in the country since last year.

Jenrick said Delo had returned to the UK "in part so that he can comply with the changes to the law".

In a statement after the programme, a Reform UK spokesman said: "We are 100% confident both [donations] are legal and won't ever have to handed back."

One person familiar with the government's proposed changes said the issue of whether Delo and Harborne are affected would likely come down to how ministers choose to define UK residency.

They said one way would be to adopt the same definition used in tax laws, but stressed how complex the rules around residency are.

The government's proposed changes were added to the Representation of the People Bill after they were approved by MPs this month. The bill still needs to be scrutinised in the House of Lords.

Rayner said the proposals were "directly as a result" of a review by former top civil servant Philip Rycroft, external, published on 25 March.

Rayner said: "We said that because of the intention of the legislation and the recommendations, which we accepted, was known in the public domain that it would be retrospective to that date.

"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."

There are currently no restrictions on the amount of money UK-based donors can give to political parties.

The government has previously said it was "determined to tackle" the issue of "mega-donors", and has established a new taskforce to do this.

It did not support calls from some MPs for a cap but Rayner left the door open to the possibility of further restrictions.

"It's not as simple as we're saying we won't put a cap [on donations], it's a question of making sure that the task and finish group look at how we implement this."

Rayner said the aim would be to "protect our democracy in the spirit of individuals not being able to overpower and buy their way into democracy at the expense of those people that are at the ballot box".

Conservative shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat said it was important to ensure "we do not end up with a sort of Americanisation of politics where money just sort of runs free".

He said people should be able to support the democratic movements they wished but added that "what we've got to be careful about is where different industries, where different financial sources raise questions".

Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokeswoman Lisa Smart said there should be emergency legislation to cap campaign donations and spending.

She said: "No politician should be able to buy the keys to Number 10."

A Green Party spokesperson said there needed to be "more robust laws" around political donations, adding: "The Labour Party urgently needs to find its spine and support a tight cap on donations from individuals."

Jenrick said Delo and Harborne - who each gave £36m to the party in two days and now share the record for the largest ever donation given to a UK political party - were "not buying anything, they simply support our agenda".

Both men had already donated millions of pounds to Reform ahead of the announcement of their latest contributions.

The Times reported in June that Harborne, who has been based in Thailand, had registered to vote in the UK, while Delo had told the Telegraph in April that he was moving back from Hong Kong.

Harborne wrote in the Telegraph on Saturday that Reform was a "start-up party" that lacked "the benefit of hundreds of years of patronage". Delo had written in the newspaper the day prior that he wanted to enable Reform to put up a "fair fight at the next election."

The £72m from the two is more than the total received by all UK political parties last year.

Delo was pardoned by US President Donald Trump last year over a breach of anti-money laundering laws at his crypto trading platform, BitMex, to which he had pleaded guilty in 2022.

Reform's fundraising has come under scrutiny in recent months. This includes police announcing an investigation over allegations the party broke foreign funding laws in a broadcast by Channel 4 News last week.

The party's leader Nigel Farage is also under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner over whether he should have declared a £5m gift he received from Harborne ahead of the 2024 election.

Both Reform and Farage have denied any wrongdoing in both instances.