36 is clearly the magic number.
A record-breaking £36 million donation to Reform announced last night from Ben Delo, the British-born and bred cryptocurrency billionaire, has been matched today by another donation for the same amount by Christopher Harborne, the British businessman and tech investor. The donations will be a massive shot in the arm for Farage’s party.
It’s worth taking a moment to consider just what lengths Labour have gone to to try to stop this happening. They’re introducing a £100,000 annual cap on donations from people living overseas and a one-year waiting period before returnees can escape the cap, not to mention a moratorium on all political donations in cryptoassets. All are likely to leave Labour’s funds largely untouched but risked hammering Reform’s donations. And a more expansive domestic cap, which would have hit Labour too, was dropped only after the unions objected.
A more expansive domestic cap, which would have hit Labour too, was dropped only after the unions objected.
In the face of all these attempts to rewrite the rules, Reform’s two biggest donors have given their money – meant as £1 million every month each until the expected general election in 2029 – now as an upfront lump sum.
There’s no doubt that the donations are huge. Total spending in the 2024 election was topped by Labour on £30 million, followed by £23.9 million racked up by the Tories. Reform spent just £5.5 million. But the combined £2 million per month from Delo and Harborne equates to around half what Labour spent on average per month (£3.93 million) during 2025, a non-general-election year. It’s also the case that since 2021, the Tories have raised around £150 million and Labour c. £128 million, compared with Reform’s c. £38 million (before these donations). Delo also referred in his Telegraph article to the fact ‘the established parties receive substantial public money’ – in 2025/26, Reform got just £407,000 of this so-called Short Money, compared with £5.52 million for the Tories – so there is a large amount of truth to the idea that these mega donations are an important milestone toward levelling the playing field.
There has been much frothing at the mouth and gnashing of teeth. Collective amnesia too, about Labour’s £4 million donation from Quadrature Capital and at least £15 million which the Tories received from Frank Hester, both in 2024. But perhaps first prize for absurd reactions goes to the indefatigable Alastair Campbell, who seems to have taken exception to the BBC accurately quoting Nigel Farage, who said he was ‘honoured and humbled’ to get Britain’s biggest-ever political donation. Campbell railed: ‘Can we not sack the Gibb/Reform team who write the headlines and control BBC online?’
That’s right, folks. You heard it here first. The left are now accusing Reform of being in control of … the BBC. Here endeth another day in the topsy-turvy world of British politics. Only this time, it’s Reform’s opponents on the back foot.
But numbers aside, the most interesting part for me was what Ben Delo said about his rationale for giving. That recent events had persuaded him that the best thing Reform could be doing was to spend less time worrying about rattling the tin soliciting donations, and more time preparing for government. This was echoed by Harborne: ‘What do I expect in return for my donations? Nothing, personally. No peerage, no policy change, just a party that is ready for government.’
This is absolutely – if you’ll excuse the pun – on the money. The institutional resistance to a Reform government will be tremendous. The party needs to be relentlessly focused on policy development and how it will carry out that policy; on how it can drive its programme through Whitehall. Hence the theme of the panel – ‘How can a Reform government defeat the Blob?’ – that I hosted with Danny Kruger, Reform’s head of Preparing for Government, and Malcolm Offord, Reform’s leader in Scotland, at their conference last week.
The criticism of Reform that I have heard in recent weeks from those who wish the party nothing but to romp home at the next election is that it has to end the own goals. There are too many powerful establishment opponents of the party splayed-out before it for it to make an enemy of itself. And for all the excellent work being done by Danny Kruger, and the policy team headed up by the (now departed) James Orr, the party needs to do even more and faster to prepare for the task ahead.
There are lots of things that unite Reform voters. One is the sense that the country feels broken. Another is that the blame lies with both Labour and Tory administrations, and also with the civil service and other arms of the bureaucratic state. They also share a sense that the hour is late. That the next general election really may be the last opportunity we have to course correct; that it is last chance saloon for Britain.
If these Brits, Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, feel those things – and having met Delo a couple of times every indication is that he certainly does, and I assume Harborne too – then who can begrudge them putting their money where their mouths are in the service of their country? That, to me, seems an act of the greatest patriotism.
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