Yet more embarrassment for Farage
One of Nigel Farage’s biggest financial backers asked an associate to donate £50,000 on his behalf so that it would appear that the then Brexit party had a broader donor base than it actually did, it has been revealed.
In yet more embarrassment for Farage, the Financial Times reports that in 2019, ‘businessman Christopher Harborne told the associate that he wanted to avoid the perception that Farage’s party, later renamed Reform UK, had just one big backer at the UK general election that year’.
Harborne reportedly has joint British and Thai nationality and goes by the name Chakrit Sakunkrit in the South-East Asian country.
Under UK electoral laws, it is an offence to make a donation on behalf of another person without providing the true donor’s details.
In this case, the money was not gifted in the end and a donation was not made by the associate.
Harborne was the biggest donor to the Brexit Party between 2019 and 2020, donating over £10mn in his own name.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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