Donations of £72m make Reform’s prospects both rosier and riskier
Party can boost its campaign power with funds from billionaire backers, but it can also lose support from ordinary Britons All things being equal, pretty much any political strategist would welcome a £72m war chest; a sum higher than the combined spending of every major party at the 2024 general election. But all things are not equal, and with such a huge amount comes risk. Reform UK has been vocal in its arguments that two sudden £36m windfalls from billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne merely “levels the playing field” with the bigger parties when it comes to funding. In one sense, this carries some weight. Of the £65m-ish spent in 2024 by the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Reform parties, less than a 10th was used by Nigel Farage’s party.
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Farage only disclosed the gift when the Guardian revealed it in April, prompting not just the standards investigation and the slightly quixotic byelection he fought to supposedly clear his name, but a subsequent period when the Reform leader skipped his previous timetable of regular press conferences to avoid awkward questions.
