Angela Rayner suggests Labour could toughen up ban on huge donations to political parties after crypto-billionaires hand Reform record £72million
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Labour could move to cap political donations after two crypto billionaires based abroad handed £72million to Reform UK, a senior minister suggested today.
Angela Rayner said that the funding of political parties was a 'live issue' after financiers Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo jointly smashed the record for the largest donation in British political history.
Thailand-based Mr Harborne and Hong Kong-based Mr Delo both poured £36million into Nigel Farage's coffers on Saturday.
Mr Farage said they had donated the money upfront to circumvent any attempt by Labour to cap political donations – and to fast-track his attempts to build a party machine to rival the Conservatives and Labour.
Legislation is currently going through Parliament to cap donations from abroad to £100,000, although both men are registered as voters in the UK to make their donations legal.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has refused to back a backbench move to tighten the law to make it apply to UK donations, amid pushback from unions that bankroll his own party.
But speaking to Sky News today, Ms Rayner said: 'We're saying that if you don't pay taxes, if you don't live here, you can't buy your way into our democracy because you're a billionaire.
'It's a really live question for us about making sure that our democracy is about the people and them having a choice, and not about people with billions of pounds being able to buy their way.'
Reform UK has insisted its two crypto-billionaire donors want 'nothing' in exchange for their combined £72million gifts to the party.
Neither Mr Harborne nor Mr Delo will be given a knighthood, a peerage or a government contract if Reform comes to power, the party said, after receiving the two gifts in the space of 24 hours.
The donations, amounting to £36million from each man, are the largest in British political history and together are equivalent to three-quarters of the money spent at the 2024 general election by all parties combined.
Thailand-based Mr Harborne, Reform's largest donor, said his gift was 'a philanthropic gift to our country' intended to help the party prepare for government.
As well as donating to the party, Mr Harborne gave £5million to Mr Farage personally, with the Reform leader's failure to declare the gift leading to an investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.
Mr Delo, who was pardoned last year by Donald Trump after a conviction for violating the US Bank Secrecy Act, said his donation was intended to create a 'level playing field' for Reform with the other parties.
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