Reform’s Tice hits out at Labour ‘hypocrisy’ over £72m donations row

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice accused Labour of “hyperventilating hypocrisy” over the £72 million of donations received by his party from two crypto-billionaires.

The twin £36 million gifts from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne have reignited calls for a blanket cap on donations, going further than legislation aimed at restricting donations from overseas sources.

Reform insisted the donations were in line both with current rules and planned restrictions on money from donors based overseas which are set to be considered in the Lords on Monday.

Those changes restrict donations from expats to £100,000 which would also apply for the first 12 months after they return to the UK – changes which would be backdated to March 25 this year.

Mr Delo has been based in Hong Kong but said in April he would return to the UK to avoid restrictions on overseas donors, and Mr Harborne was based in Thailand but in June he was reported to have registered to vote in Hampshire.

Mr Tice said he was “not familiar with every day of every week that these individuals spend in the country” but told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “We just know that they have complied with the rules and regulations, both existing and proposed and will continue to do so.”

The donations have renewed calls for a blanket cap on individual donations to parties to limit the influence of big money on British politics.

Mr Tice told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “You’ve now got a hyperventilating hypocrisy from the socialists ruining this country, who are trying to change the rules retrospectively, which is it’s not the fair way, it’s not the British way, and I think most people will say ‘does that just mean that Labour are terrified of the progress of Reform and they’re trying to create an unlevel playing field?’.

“What these two donations are trying to do is to actually level the playing field.

“We’re relatively new, we haven’t had the vast donations over the last five to 10 years that Labour and the Tories have had, so we need to employ campaign managers up and down the country, we need to employ brilliant policy people, the best minds, in order to ensure that we have the best policies.”

He said the donors would have “absolutely zero” influence on Reform’s policy platform.

“They haven’t made any asks, they haven’t made demands and nothing would be given in return, we’ve made that crystal clear,” he said.

He compared the situation to Labour’s funding from trade unions who “make demands about employment rights regulations, public sector pay and they get those demands satisfied”.

Proposals for a cap are likely to feature heavily in the House of Lords, which will debate the Government’s Representation of the People Bill on Monday.

The Bill already contains the measures limiting donations from overseas electors to £100,000 a year, but attempts by MPs to impose a general cap failed after the Government promised to task officials with investigating how a measure would work.

On Sunday, Communities Secretary Angela Rayner suggested a cap was still on the table, telling the BBC she wanted to stop people “being able to overpower and buy their way into democracy”.

The Liberal Democrats are likely to push for a cap, having called for “emergency legislation” to impose one and saying the donations exposed “a dangerous flaw in our democratic system”.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, has suggested donations from trade unions should be exempt from any cap, saying they were “not the same as two crypto millionaires waking up and giving £72 million”.