# Reform UK > [!info] Partial > Funding section built September 14, 2026. Still needs electoral history and policy platform. British right-populist political party led by [[Nigel Farage]], successor to the Brexit Party. Its policy operation is headed by [[James Orr]], the Cambridge theologian appointed in September 2025 and tasked, in his own words, with "boosting the party's acquisition of talent" by building "networks of elite defectors from academia, business, and law." Reform is the primary British node of the transatlantic [[National Conservatism]] network, with documented ties to the [[Edmund Burke Foundation]], to Hungarian state-backed institutions that fund conservative programming in the UK, and — via Orr — to [[Peter Thiel]]. ## Funding Reform UK is the most concentrated major-party funding structure in modern British politics. Reporting has indicated that roughly **75% of its donations** come from just three individuals. As of September 2026, two of them are crypto billionaires. ### The September 2026 donations | Date revealed | Donor | Amount | Note | |---|---|---|---| | **Sept 11, 2026** | [[Ben Delo]] | **£36M** | Largest single donation to a UK political party on record | | **Sept 12, 2026** | [[Christopher Harborne]] | **£36M** | Matched it exactly, one day later | | | **Combined** | **£72M (~$97.4M)** | Exceeds the **£69M** received by *all* UK parties in the preceding year | Delo's donation displaced Lord John Sainsbury's £10 million to the Conservatives (2022) as the British record, beating it by more than a factor of three — and held the record for about a day. Neither donor disclosed the form of payment; Harborne's earlier Reform donations were made in fiat rather than cryptocurrency. ### The shape of the dependency | Donor | Lifetime giving to Farage vehicles | Source of wealth | |---|---|---| | [[Christopher Harborne]] | **£58M+** since 2019 | [[Tether]] (~12% stake), QinetiQ, aviation fuel | | [[Ben Delo]] | **£44M** in 2026 | [[BitMEX]] (co-founder) | Two observations follow, and they are the reason this page exists as more than a party profile. **First, the money is crypto money.** Both fortunes derive from cryptocurrency infrastructure — a stablecoin issuer and a derivatives exchange — and Reform UK was the first UK party to accept crypto donations, with Farage pledging to make Britain a "global leader in crypto innovation." The donor's principal asset and the recipient's headline policy are the same object. This is the British instance of the pattern the KB tracks in the US under [[Crypto-Political Machine]]. **Second, the donor base did not broaden — it narrowed.** Adding a second billionaire to a one-billionaire party does not diversify it. Before September 2026, Reform's structural vulnerability was that one man in Thailand could switch it off. Now two men can, and both hold assets whose regulatory treatment the party has committed itself to shaping. ### Regulatory response The donations produced immediate cross-party calls for a cap. Transparency International UK director **Duncan Hames** called it "a watershed moment" requiring "an annual cap on political donations, and fast." Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokeswoman **Lisa Smart** called for emergency legislation, describing the donations as "a very clear and present threat." Green Party deputy leader **Rachel Millward** called the sums "absolutely staggering." Labour MP **Stella Creasy** had previously proposed an amendment capping donations at £100,000 a year. It was never debated in the Commons after the government said it would establish a task force to examine the issue instead. Harborne's page notes that Reform UK opposes the proposed £100,000/year cap on overseas donor contributions — a position in which its largest donor has a direct personal interest. > [!warning] Queued, not built > Reporting on the September donations includes Labour demanding that Reform "come clean" and "fully co-operate with the ongoing police investigations." The nature, subject and status of those investigations are not established here. Deferred pending independent sourcing — do not carry this claim into the vault without it. ## See Also - [[Nigel Farage]] - [[Kemi Badenoch]] · [[Conservative Party (UK)]] — the party Reform is overtaking, and its leader - [[Musk UK Campaign]] — Musk's break with Reform over [[Tommy Robinson]], and his backing for rivals to its right - [[James Orr]] - [[National Conservatism]] - [[Dark Enlightenment]]