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

@Efacsen

Polls only measure voting intention
Elections measure actual voting

I would rewrite that to:

Polls only guess voting intention
Elections measure actual voting

And look how often they are different. Often poles apart.

Polling science is quite interesting. It’s definitely not infallible and there have been some methodological changes after a couple of disastrously wrong ones. But it’s big business so it’s not ‘finger in the air’ either.

https://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/faqs-about-polling/

It really doesn't beg that question

I think this will backfire on Labour. It will make them look petty and hypocritical.

They are carrying on with legislation that was drafted before the massive bung to Reform. How is that hypocritical? They are not proposing caps on donations from businesses and organisations, so it is not only the unions who won't be affected.

@concertinacornflake

It really doesn't beg that question.

The 2024 general election cost an estimated £94 million. That could be money saved if polls are accurate.

So you want to disenfranchise the vast majority of electorate? How sensible.

I know you're upset with how polling is going for Reform right now, but you will have to live with it.

@MelissaLovedMantari

I know you're upset with how polling is going for Reform right now, but you will have to live with it.

Incorrect assumption. I voted Labour in 2024.

Due to the FPTP electoral system, poll percentages don’t mean anything. One of your earlier posts acknowledged that polls can’t be used to forecast the outcome of a general election.

Don't forget that going by the Polls, Cameron et al were all sure in June 2016 that we were all going to vote to remain in the EU.
Wrong 😖
That's why they never bothered to make a "Plan B" 😆

@wendywoody

Don't forget that going by the Polls, Cameron et al were all sure in June 2016 that we were all going to vote to remain in the EU.
Wrong 😖
That's why they never bothered to make a "Plan B" 😆

Excellent post.

I would add that after the referendum, remain voters stated that a difference of 4% was not enough to make an informed decision. However, over 10 years later, they are excited that Labour has at best a 2.9 % lead (less if you average them out) over Reform in polls that are based on a few thousand compared to the 33.4 million who voted in 2016.

How did you vote in May 2026? Reform, I bet.

@MelissaLovedMantari

How did you vote in May 2026? Reform, I bet.

I didn’t vote for anyone in May 2026. Out of the UK at the time.

However, if you are interested in betting, I will bet that regardless of the outcome of the investigation into Farage/Reform will not produce the result I think remain supporters are longing for.

You should have organised a postal vote!

Nigel Farage has threatened to cut off Labour’s union funding if Reform UK wins the next general election.

In an increasingly bitter row over party funding, Mr Farage hit out at calls from trade unions to limit individual donations while creating a separate set of rules for them.

Writing for The Telegraph, he said neither of Reform’s main donors – the cryptocurrency billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne – had asked for or would receive anything in return for the £36m donations they had both pledged to his party.

“If anyone is giving money to do political bidding, it’s the trade unions,” he said. “So I would just warn the Labour Party here and now: If you try and ban our donors, we in government would certainly ban funding from the trade unions.
“I don’t want to go down that route. But it is something we would be prepared to do.”

The legislation will apply retrospectively and is specifically targeted at Reform. Retrospective legislation is very rare for good reason. In my opinion it is likely to just reinforce support for Reform because it looks like an attack rather than a genuine attempt to make the system fairer.

Of course we all believe everything Nigel says…

I don’t care which political party it is - no one person should be allowed to donate that much. It’s not good for democracy. It’s all very grubby.

Agreed.

As usual, Labour appear all bitter and twisted.

Reinforce existing support? But not expand support?

Possibly. I guess support for Reform ebbs and flows like all the political parties. Perhaps they will regain the ground they’ve lost lately.

Some of the HoL Labour peers very much want to carve out the unions as the only ones who can donate millions. Shoddy stuff.

The council elections poll was the most reliable one on Reform i.e reality based on everyone who actually voted, not a small sample of people who may or may not tell the truth or change their mind later.

There would be a national strike, the unions would bring the country to a standstill.

The Unions collectively donate but it's a donation made up from millions of workers who voted to opt in for political donations. Very different from a single person donating money

"It’s all very grubby"

Especially when the money is going to Reform.

Democracy is great, we believe wholeheartedly in democracy........except when people vote for Brexit.

Most people are not in a Union, agency workers would jump in at triple the pay for care work etc. Care workers, Nurse etc. are not going to strike anyway, the types of jobs that are heavily unionised now, no one would notice if they went on strike, people with massive mortgage debt don"t strike etc etc. The last time the Unions could stop the country was the 1970"s, waving rainbow flags and putting fake rent a mob "counter protesters" on the streets doesn"t stop the country.