Reform UK's donors this quarter include crypto investor Christopher Harborne, the owner of the Daily Mail's wife and Sotheby's
Reform UK received £10.5 million in donations between July and September this year, far outstripping any other political party. Nigel Farage’s party raised more than four times Labour’s £2.5 million. The Conservatives recorded £7 million in donations, while the Liberal Democrats reported £2.2 million, roughly half of which came from public funding.
Only a very small proportion of Reform’s donations came from public funds (£227,000). The majority came from big private donations. Who are Reform’s biggest donors this quarter? Let’s take a look.
Christopher Harborne
By far and away Reform’s largest donation from the last quarter (July to September 2025) was from crypto investor Christopher Harborne. Not only that, it is the largest ever single donation made to a British political party. It is understood that Harborne, who lives in Thailand, has given Reform this massive handout to help fund their local election campaign next year. If this is how much Harborne donates for local elections, and political donations remain uncapped, how much might the multimillionaire give to Reform ahead of the next general election?
Harborne donated more than £6 million to the Brexit Party in 2019, £3 million in the summer and £3 million before the United Kingdom general election in 2019. In November 2022, he gave £1 million to Boris Johnson’s office. Farage was paid £50,000 to make speeches at two cryptocurrency conferences in October.
At crypto company Blockworks’ conference on 13 October, Farage told crypto investors “I am your champion” and vowed Reform would “effectively bring crypto in from the cold”. In a speech at Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas in May, Farage announced that Reform would become the first political party to accept donations in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In September, Farage used an appearance on LBC’s Nick Ferrari show in September to plug Tether, a firm that deals in Stablecoins, and which Harborne invests in.
He said: “Tether is about to be valued as a $500 billion company”. Farage said he had been “urging for years that London should embrace it” and that the UK should become a global trading centre for Stablecoin. As Byline Times has reported, Farage did not declare that one of his biggest donors has significant financial interests in Stablecoin.
Nick Candy
Reform UK’s chief fundraiser and treasurer, Nick Candy, donated £490,000 of his own money to the party in the last quarter. The property developer and his brother Christian Candy were estimated to be worth £1.5 billion back in 2010. When Candy defected from the Tories to Reform in December 2024, he said he would raise “tens of millions” for the party. Candy pledged to donate “seven-figures” himself, which he has now almost done. He has donated £990,000 since he became Reform’s chief fundraiser which is just shy of seven figures…
Claudia Harmsworth
Harmsworth is married to the owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere (Jonathan Harmsworth). She donated £50,000 to Reform UK. The party recorded the donation on 30 September. The idea that a major right-wing newspaper has donated to Reform raises concerns about the media operating independently from political parties.
Bassim Haidar
Haidar has donated £130,000 to Reform over the quarter. Since January, he has donated £335,000 to Reform. Haidar is a Nigerian-Lebanese billionaire with Irish citizenship. According to a Byline Times article on the entrepreneur, was previously an advisor to Amnesty International and the World Economic Forum. Some of his overseas fortune comes from a cannabis enterprise in South Africa.
Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s, best known for its fine art auctions, has a luxury real estate company. Sotheby’s realty has donated £100,000 to Reform over the quarter. So much for Reform being a party of alarm-clock Britain and on the side of working people.
Interior Architecture Landscape
The company, which describes itself as “one of London’s leading luxury interior designers” has twice faced strike-off action from HMRC in 2024 and 2025 over late filing of its accounts. HMRC discontinued the strike-off action both times.
In the last accounts it filed for the year ending January 2024, the company had assets of £99,000 and a tax liability of more than £200,000 due within a year. Despite this, the company made a £100,000 donation to Reform in June.
In this quarter, the company, whose director is John Simpson, gave four separate donations of £25,000 between July and August.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn't have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.