Is changing donation laws for Reform retrospectively unfair or politically justified?

You have to be resident in the UK to register.

You can register as an over seas voter it seems:

You can register as an overseas voter if you move or live abroad.

You must have previously lived in the UK and be either:

a British citizen
an eligible Irish citizen registering to vote in Northern Ireland

Eta: I remember now. There used to be a 15 year limit on overseas voters, but the Tories removed that restriction before the 2024 GE.

the Tories removed that restriction before the 2024 GE.

Funny, that.

Innit.

So how does this work then?

individuals registered on a UK electoral register, including overseas electors

Try reading subsequent posts and all will be revealed.

Okay, went back and read. Sounds likely these guys were registered before they moved abroad and therefore they are registered and can legally donate.

They possibly can with current legislation that’s passing through. If Labour try to change it again due to the donations we’ll see.

It certainly used to be the case that British expats not resident in the UK could register to vote in the UK. I've done it several times.

There were criteria you had to meet to register.

So by that list of permissible sources I would have been able to donate to political parties.

Harborne et al have been donating, and Harborne's £5m immediately before Farage announced he was standing for Parliament looks like a permissible donation; Farage's problem there is that he failed to declare it.

What is being proposed now is a cap on the amount Brits abroad can donate.

This makes sense because someone could, say, emigrate permanently to the US and take out US citizenship while retaining their UK citizenship. They could be fully committed to the US – indeed would have taken an oath of allegiance – but continue to have a say in UK politics.

If that "say" is just one vote, that's no more influence than I have. I'm prepared to let that one go for the moment (even if ethically they ought to have less influence than me given I actually live in the UK so what happens here really matters to me).

However our hypothetical US/UK dual citizen may decide that although they are committed to their foreign life and never intend to live in the UK again, they want a more substantial say in how the UK is run – purely for the benefit of their foreign (ie US) interests. They may try to do this by channelling vast sums of money into UK politics from their foreign life.

It's actually been a bit of an anomaly that they've been permitted to do it all these years.

(I'm pretty sure the survival of this anomaly has been to do with the tendency of such wealthy expats to support the Tories, and we've mostly had Tory governments. The exception to the Tory government was the Blair/Brown Labour government which needed to keep Murdoch onside and also Mandelson's friends... so weren't going to spoil the wealthy expats' fun either. Now we have a different Labour government and half the top Tories have defected to Reform, so the remaining Tories have suddenly discovered it's not such a great wheeze after all. )

X-posted with lots of people explaining the criteria to be an overseas voter.

Deleted as got confused about what the rules are now and what is being proposed.

What is being proposed now is a cap on the amount Brits abroad can donate.

Or rather what was being proposed. I've lost track a bit as the Bill goes through Parliament.

@Notsurewhattodonowattheendyou may right and it’s allowed rn but it could change. Burnham backed down on caps here due to the unions earlier this year, so it depends whether he sticks to that. Or somehow his party get more changes through.

The Bill was first discussed in Parliament on 12th Feb and re-introduced on 14th May

The donations came just before the HoL second reading.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/representation-of-the-people-bill-policy-summaries

Burnham raised, as in talked about, caps before the donations, the unions objected. He backed down. Now he’ll have to decide what to do. I doubt carving out unions will go down well but we’ll see.

If it’s not tax residency, then I wonder how many days in the country they need to have to count as residents for political donation purposes.

I think it’s the electoral roll and a year.

That would create a situation where someone is here for 92 days and therefore has to pay UK taxes, but cannot make political donations. Seems wrong.

I don't have a problem with the removal of the restriction. I haven't lived in the Netherlands for 29 years but can still vote in Dutch General Elections. They make it really easy to register too. I can't vote here, but laws made in my home country can still affect me, so this is reasonable.

How has he backed down?

At the moment they get representation without taxation.

While the right to register as an overseas elector exists, they will continue to get representation without taxation.

However their ability to get more significantly more representation than me (a mere taxpaying UK pleb) via their vast donations, will be slightly diminished.

Maybe. Labour want to ring fence their donations and lower others.

You keep saying this without any evidence to back it up. Maybe add 'in my opinion' or 'my hunch is'

Your link below had clauses from Labour MPs to exempt unions. Did you read it? Stella Creasy and two others.

You had affiliation fees explained to you.