Labour plot to block mega-donations to Reform 'could breach its own human rights laws', warns former attorney general

Labour's bid to block a pair of £36 million donations to Reform could fall foul of its own human rights laws, a former attorney general has warned .

Downing Street has confirmed that a crackdown on money given by political donors based abroad will be applied retrospectively, in what critics say is a breach of 'natural justice'.

The full scope of the new law is not clear, but it could force Reform to pay back two mega donations announced last weekend by crypto-billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne.

But former attorney general Sir Michael Ellis said the retrospective nature of the plans could fall foul of both the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Labour’s Human Rights Act.

Sir Michael told the Mail it was ‘patently obvious that Labour are trying to move the goalposts’ to curb donations to Reform.

He added: ‘The retrospective nature of this is offensive to English law and the rules of natural justice. But it is also banned by the ECHR. There have been some exceptions in the past when it comes to the civil law, but not in relation to matters that carry criminal penalties, which most election law does.’

Sir Michael said it was ‘not clear that this legislation can be signed off as compliant with the Human Rights Act’, adding: ‘Labour could come a cropper on their own legislation’.

Ministers are planning to change the law to cap donations from British citizens based abroad at £100,000 a year. No 10 confirmed that this will be backdated to 25 March this year. After that point, any donor would have to prove they have been registered to vote in the UK for at least 12 months.

No 10 announced on Tuesday it would also impose a new ‘strengthened’ residency test. Officials were unable to say what this would involve. But it would require people to show they have an ‘ongoing presence in the UK’, possibly by paying tax here.

Nigel Farage said this week that the two record-breaking donations were ‘were ‘100 per cent compliant with the law today’.

Reform has already started spending the money, launching a major recruitment drive and drawing up plans for a new TV channel.

The party’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf accused Labour of ‘creating retroactive laws to try and bankrupt a political opponent’.

He added: ‘Once the principle of legal certainty is sacrificed to naked partisan expedience, there is no stopping point.

‘Politics ceases to be a contest of persuasion under reasonable and predictable rules. Instead it becomes a game of raw power where the winner simply changes the laws to destroy the loser’s capacity to compete.’

In an interview in April this year, Mr Delo, who spent years in Hong Kong, said he would ‘move back to Britain early so I can contribute more to Reform’s budget’.

But official records seen by the Daily Mail suggest Mr Delo has been registered to vote at a property in Oxfordshire since 2022, which could allow him to escape Labour’s planned crackdown.

Records suggest that Mr Harborne, who spent years in Thailand, has been registered to vote in Hampshire on and off since 2020.

Last year he was registered in a constituency where he owns a property under the heading ‘other electors’, which can include overseas voters living abroad. However, he does not appear to have been registered in the UK at all in either 2021 or 2024.