AIBU to question why crypto investors are heavily funding Reform?

Not the level of detail you were asking for but if you want to put the Reform donations in context you will see how far they dwarf anything received by other political parties.

It isn't a conspiracy theory when you can actually buy an offshore account and not pay tax if you have enough money. It is reality.

Thank you. It’s very useful to see. It’s only for the last rolling year, so I have no idea if these donations are unique or come to all parties now and again.

You are allowed to avoid tax. You are not allowed to evade tax. One is legal one isn't. Giving money to your kids and hoping you live for 7 years is avoiding IHT. Normal and legal. Why would you , unless you are St Gary, want to pay more tax? Particularly if its being spaffed up the wall by this government to the non deserving?

Anyway I don't think we are persuading each other of our point of view. Never mind.

I put this on another thread.

The donors were planning £1million/month up until 2029. Labour tried to stop this by putting a cap on overseas donations and a stop on all donations in c. These wouldnt affect Labour's donations, mainly Reform's. The attempt to cap domestic donations (which would affect Labour) was stopped by the trade unions.

Because of this the donors gave the money in a lump sum rather than staggered as they were fearful Labour would try and queer the pitch even more.

£2 million per month given by Reform donors. Versus £3.93 million/ month spent by Labour in 2025, a non election year.

The Conservatives have raised £150million since 2021, Labour £128 million and Reform £38million before these donations.

Important to look at things in a fair way. IMO

There is absolutely no historical precedent in British politics for individual donations as large as the ones Reform have just received. Before this weekend, the all-time highest single donation in British history was a £10 million bequest left to the Conservative Party in the will of the late billionaire John Sainsbury. No one single trade union donation has ever surpassed £5 million.

So, whatever your party political beliefs, I really think donations of this scale should be troubling to anyone who values the traditions of our democracy - unless what we want is a more American style of politics where a candidate’s success is largely dictated by how many big money investors they can court.

DEI is a US term. Frankly, so is the test of your reply. But it's helpful, because it tells me exactly where you stand.

I think it was just a chain of events that meant it ended up this way. It obviously wasn't the intention initially.

Yes it tells you exactly where I stand. Probably....

Im glad I was helpful. Make sure you update your notes.

Exactly!

And it is also a complete misrepresentation to claim that the reforms in the Representation of the People Act are some kind of Labour ploy to specifically target Reform UK. The reforms have come about through an independent review with cross party support and are aimed at stopping foreign interference and untraceable money from polluting our politics. If there is one particular political party who are especially keen on untraceable money and foreign interference, it says everything about them and nothing about anybody else.

Positive discrimination exists in the Uk. You’re not meant to actively discriminate against white people though, although that’s what happens. It’s meant to be about recognising the local workforce and ensuring any obstacles that might preclude those people from being able to apply for a job - be removed or at least minimised.

Sometimes the simplest explanations are the right ones. Why would Labour not seek to restrict income that mainly benefits opponents that, remember, they consider the Nazi Second Coming? While not restricting income that mainly benefits themselves? Are we thinking Labour are a rule-following party full of MPs that would never engineer benefits to themselves?

I think this is important. We need to see what is being aggregated over time. Hiding massive donations by breaking them into a stream of small chunks won’t fool anyone if the information is transparent.

I don’t deal in conspiracy theories, however simple they may seem. I deal in facts, and the facts are these reforms are the result of a review by a highly respected, politically neutral former senior civil servant. The recommendations in that review are supported by The Electoral Commission - who are an independent organisation. These reforms are backed by the Conservative Party, who are the official opposition. I’m genuinely struggling to see why anyone would object to less foreign interference and less untraceable money in our democracy..?!

It’s not foreign money they’re trying to stop. The current donations are residents.

To be fair the original £5m wasn't. Let's see if Harborne genuinely moves back to the UK (and pays taxes here). I'm skeptical.

I think retrospective laws are unfair on principle.

It's nice for Reform that these mega-donors who haven't been committed enough to the UK to live here most of the time, have chosen to (temporarily?) move here while their donations go through.

Because earlier this year, James Orr was caught on camera saying Reform didn't have enough financial support in Britain.

At 10:29 in the undercover filming broadcast by C4:

C4 narrator: Orr claims the party is cash-strapped.
James Orr: We just don't have British resident donors. British entities that would support us. That's the grim reality.

The changes being introduced via the Representation of the People Bill are definitely explicitly aimed at stopping foreign interference and closing offshore loopholes. I don’t know if those changes would stop these particular donations - it was a previous poster who suggested the reason these donors had given such enormous lump sums was to stop the changes in the Representation of the People bill from affecting them.

Same, especially since Labour already backed down to the unions on caps. Now scrambling to impose them, and add it to a bill that’s already going through but concentrating on foreign donors.