Farage receives second £36m donation in two days for Reform

[Greyrock79]

Farage receives second £36m donation in two days.

Reform’s biggest donor Christopher Harborne matched record donation given on Friday by fellow cryptocurrency billionaire Ben Delo

It's a ban on donations from without the country. What do you imagine the consequences would be?

We’ll see I guess. But none of that will improve the situation of the UK.

I think it's perfectly justifiable to ban donations from people who don't even live in the UK. I also think it's sensible to cap donations from any given source - allowing huge donations from any source has the potential to undermine democracy as big donors will inevitably have a lot of influence.

I'm not sure where I stand on the question of backdating changes in the law. That instinctively feels wrong to me, but I don't know enough about the legal rationale that would be used to justify this, so I haven't made up my mind on that bit yet.

Farage has clearly stated unlike the Conservatives and Labour he won't be giving any Reform donors a peerage.

I am saying that the tales of woe are exaggerated, and ten years after Brexit large numbers of people in the UK are still living beyond their means on credit and pretending to be celebrities with their face glued to a phone, where are the riots, where is the economic collapse, where are the starving people due to Brexit? The collapse is coming but it will be because the bond market forces up interest rates, nothing much to do with Brexit.

https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/06/05/eurozone-economy-shrinks-by-02-in-the-first-quarter-of-2026

It might if more sensible less ideologically driven EU leadership emerges.

I’m curious what effect this money might really have on such a new party. It can’t really buy experience or quality, like a football club. I suppose it might attract more candidates and enable a better vetting process. They’ve said no more Tories but there might still be some to cross over I guess.

If they don"t backdate they can"t stop Nigel, it is all very sad and obvious. They can"t stop Reform now anyway because whatever rule they cobble together funds will appear from people who are within the new guidelines because the attempts to stop a political movement are just echos of the attempts to overthrow Brexit and people are getting very very pissed off with it.

I haven't said anything about tales of woe or starving people, and that's an incredibly reductive way of looking at it. I'm talking about the overall damage to our economy and the knock-on impact of that on all of our lives.

If you want to bury your head in the sand and pretend that a significantly smaller economy has no impact on people's everyday lives, then by all means, keep telling yourself that. But that still doesn't mean that we aren't all affected by it.

You don't seem to understand that the damage done by Brexit to our economy makes us significant less resilient as a nation and therefore much more vulnerable to interest rate rises and other economic pressures.

It’ll buy canvassing, advice and data. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll get enough votes.

The back dating is typical for Labour and is annoying. But even if some are ok with that it might not always be Labour in power and backdating legislation from a party they don’t like would go down badly too.

Only some people are pissed off with trying to overthrow brexit. 60% of people with an opinion either way want to rejoin the EU. Pro Brexit voting is linked to being older and many of those who voted leave are no longer with us.

It's no different than the unions donating to Labour.
Currently £142 Million since 2010, Will Labour have to hand some that back as well?

For the year ending 2025, Labour was running a deficit...

£44,601,000 Income
£47,158,000 Expenditure

Akin to how they are running the economy.

No, the fact that people were borrowing like drunken sailors for property during the housing bubble makes us more vulnerable to interest rate rises.

Labour is now sending out 'begging letters'

https://www.aol.co.uk/articles/panic-labour-hq-party-begs-182600000.html

So you can't envisage that there might be multiple factors impacting on the economy at any given time, and you think that the only problem that we face as a country is the rate of individual borrowing?

I don't think there is much point in us continuing this discussion. I can't explain basic economics in a mumsnet post, and I'm not really sure that you want to engage with the economic reality in any case.

If you want to tell yourself that Brexit hasn't had an impact, you carry on. For the record, I note that you didn't answer my question about whether you disagreed with the analysis that the UK economy is smaller as a result of Brexit or whether you were instead trying to argue that a smaller economy would have no impact on people. I'm guessing that we shall forever be left wondering.

@BoredZelda , how is it corruption? The people who’ve donated say that they have done so to level the playing field for Reform compared to Labour and the Conservative’s funds. That seems entirely reasonable to me.

Most of the problems we face come from the global debt bubble and the unwinding of the globalist agenda, of course economists who work for global banks are going to blame Brexit for everything! Economies shrink and expand, it doesn"t mean that people are in hardship, people in the UK only started to wake up when Iran kicked their mortgage rate up, very few people dwell on Brexit now, it is and was a sideshow.

Still not actually answering the question then? Never mind.

Labour increased their net assets in the same year. The Conservatives ran a deficit in 2024 and had a big surplus the following year. Reform have been raking it in for a couple of years. What should we take from that?

Labour’s outrage over Reform UK's funding is a masterclass in hypocrisy. While they attack transparent donations that level the playing field, Labour (and the Tories) have spent decades treating their own fundraising as a transactional access economy.

Starmer accepted over £100,000 in personal luxury gifts, high end accommodation, and designer clothes from Labour peer Lord Alli, who was subsequently handed a temporary, unmonitored security pass to 10 Downing Street. Meanwhile, green energy tycoon Dale Vince poured over £5 million into Labour, gaining direct phone access to the leadership and heavily steering the government's aggressive Net Zero agenda.

Labour clearly believes that wealth in politics is only dangerous when it isn't buying them designer spectacles, securing seats in parliament, or dictating their national energy policy.

It’s the same as the local elections attempt and switching leader. Reform cause Labour to do whatever to try to not lose.

Can you give an example of the worst thing that has happened to someone you know because of Brexit?

Between 2010-2015, Labour received £65m from the unions.

But that’s OK with their apostles.

Utter hypocrites.

Why are you so angry about that?