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Chapter 1: Why is Nigel Farage's funding from a crypto billionaire significant?
This is a Global Player original podcast.
Reform has depended on one man. What is unusual is the extraordinary size of Harbourne's donations to reform in such a short space of time. Harbourne gave the single biggest donation in British political history to reform. Where is reform getting its money?
Do you like them? Very expensive. But guess what?
Chapter 2: How much money has Christopher Harbourn donated to the Reform party?
I bought them myself. How about that?
You may remember not so long ago that British politics was convulsed by so-called Freebiegate. Keir Starmer and Labour ministers being lacerated for accepting corporate hospitality, clothes, gifts from party donors. It was an early part of Keir Starmer's problems. But by comparison to party funding, you can really argue that all of that was small, almost non-existent beer.
And in the last weeks, the funding of one party in particular has attracted more and more attention. A party which tells us they're heading for Downing Street. A party tipped to top the poll in next week's English local elections. Reform.
We now know that Nigel Farage's party has been given over £12 million from a single donor, a Thai-based British businessman, crypto billionaire Christopher Harbourn. And we also now know, courtesy of The Guardian, that it isn't just enormous sums flowing into party coffers. It has been revealed this week that just before Nigel Farage was elected MP,
an MP in 2024, Mr Harborne gave Mr Farage a present, a gift of £5 million, never before disclosed. This is a total financial commitment from one man to reform and Farage personally of at least £17 million over barely two years. On today's show, then, how could it be that Reform, a party we are told that is preparing for government, could become so dependent on a Thai-based crypto-billionaire?
What does it say about the way that we fund politics, about politics to come?
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Chapter 3: What led to the recent scrutiny of Reform UK's funding?
And what, if anything, does Mr Harborne want for all that money? Welcome to The News Agents. The News Agents OK, let's start with the basics. Reform likes to say that it is a new party. And of course, in relative terms compared to Labour or the Conservatives, that's true. But it is, in fact, a rebranded version of the Brexit Party.
You'll remember them founded as a successor to Nigel Farage's UKIP to try and kill off Theresa May's ill-fated Brexit deal.
I think politics is broken. I did say that if I ever had to come back into the political fray... Next time, it'll be no more Mr Nice Guy.
Now, that party won the European elections of 2019. May's deal went down. Eventually, the Brexit party under Farage sort of backed Boris Johnson in the general election of that year. We had Brexit and then, well, the Brexit party became something else. In 2021, it was rebranded as Reform UK. Now, it largely languished under the Conservatives, with the now deputy leader Richard Tice in charge.
And then, after much speculation, Nigel Farage made yet another one of his fabled re-entries into British politics, announcing that he would stand in the general election of 2024, having only previously just said that he wouldn't.
So I am going to stand in this election. I'll be launching my candidacy at midday tomorrow. in the Essex seaside town of Clacton.
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Chapter 4: How does the donation impact perceptions of political funding?
So midday tomorrow, Clacton, at the end of the pier. But perhaps more important than that, I've made a far bigger decision than that. I'm coming back as leader of Reform UK, but not just for this election campaign. I'm coming back for the next five years.
Reform did pretty well in that general election. From a near standing start, they won 14.3% of the national vote, just over 4 million votes overall and five seats in Parliament.
Since the election, they quickly established a consistent polling lead over Tories and Labour in well over 100 polls now, sometimes substantial ones, although you will note that the trend of how big the lead is recently has been on the down. Boosted by this success, though, they've accumulated a load of former Tory cabinet ministers and MPs to the cause.
It is impressive stuff, politically speaking. And the way Reform like to portray it is as a people's army, a bottom-up revolt against the political classes.
The Reform Party is all the momentum in British politics. We are now polling at 20% and we are embarking on the most ambitious plan to build a grassroots local campaign-winning machine across the country.
But it turns out that this isn't all a grassroots effort. All of that slick, professionalised operation has to be paid for, which has led to the question with which we started. Where is reform getting its money? Well, it turns out, unusually, overwhelmingly, reform has depended on one man.
This guy, Christopher Harbourn, or should I say Chakrit Sakunkrit, a British citizen, but now Thai-based, with a Thai name, billionaire who has made much of his money in crypto he's a highly private person but here he is talking about his wellness retreat kamalaya on kosamui yeah one of the things that we try to help all of our guests at kamalaya is change one thing on each visit just one thing
Now, it isn't unusual for political parties to rely on big money donations from individuals. Indeed, Harbourn previously backed Boris Johnson's Conservatives. Harbourn went on to accompany Boris Johnson on a trip to Ukraine. What is unusual is the extraordinary size of Harbourn's donations to reform in such a short space of time and how apparently dependent reform has become often.
on this one donor. In 2025, Harbourn gave the single biggest donation in British political history to reform, some £9 million. Yes, you heard that right, £9 million. And he wasn't done. Just before 2025's end, he donated a further £1 £3 million to the party, bringing the total financial support to reform from Harbourn to a minimum of £12 million in just one year.
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Chapter 5: What is the background of Christopher Harbourn?
And Farage has even personally backed a crypto venture, reportedly to the tune of £215,000 from his own money, headed up by Liz Truss's former chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, Stack BTC.
Nigel Farage is a great political disruptor. But beyond all of that, he's someone who's championed Bitcoin over many years. And we're delighted to have him.
But of course, there's form here. Because across the Atlantic, Nigel Farage's great ally and friend Donald Trump has made huge sums, perhaps over a billion dollars in crypto, as has his wider family. An industry he, as president, now regulates.
I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world. And we'll get it done.
Harborne himself is a major shareholder in Tether. Registered in the Central American dictatorship of El Salvador with a tiny staff, Tether has been described as the most profitable company per employee in history. It has issued $184 billion in digital cash known as stablecoins. Here's Farage talking ILBC about Tether.
You know, Tether is a stable coin. Stable coins are the way which money goes from conventional currencies through into cryptocurrencies and back again. Tether is about to be valued as a $500 billion company. You know, stable coins, crypto, this world is enormous. And I've been urging for years that London should embrace it.
We should become a global trading centre for this stuff under proper regulation. And the governor of the Bank of England earlier this week indicated that nobody, no individual, should be allowed to have more than £10,000 worth of stable coins, to which some of my friends have said, should we just emigrate?
Reform also enjoys the support of Ben Delo, a Hong Kong-based, yes, you guessed it, crypto billionaire who has promised to move back to the UK to avoid a proposed Labour government law to ban foreign-based donors from donating to UK political parties. A ban Mr Harbourn, for his part, has promised to get around, saying, I'll just donate even more.
And we now know, thanks to exclusive Guardian reporting this week, that Harbourne also donated £5 million personally to Nigel Farage before the general election, a previously undisclosed sum. The Tories have referred Farage to the parliamentary authorities. asking for a standards investigation.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of Harbourn's donations for UK politics?
Find out the latest news and hear every side of the story.
There is also a judgment I made that was wrong. I should not have appointed Peter Mandelson. And I apologise again to the victims of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who were clearly failed by my decisions.
The pendulum has become turbocharged over the last few days, swinging hither and thither with gay abandon. So where is it now regarding the Prime Minister?
Listen on our free Global Player app or the LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation.
So let's start and delve deep into this curious world of Nigel Farage's finances, but also reform's finances. Can we just start by explaining who, give us a bit of a biography of who Christopher Harbourn is? Because by definition, the vast, vast majority of people up to this point have never heard of him.
Yeah, so Christopher Harborne is a billionaire. He's spending most of his time in Thailand these days, but he is British born. He's acquired much of his wealth through a 12% stake in a cryptocurrency called Tether. And he has for a long time, since at least 2019, been a big backer of the Brexit party, which eventually became, as we know now, the Reform UK party.
So he's a longstanding supporter of it. He has also given money, it's important to note, to the Conservative Party previously. And he's made a gift to the office of Boris Johnson before he made a million pound gift to that office. So he's a well-established political donor in the UK.
And primarily now, even though, as you say, he's British, he is based, he lives in Thailand. That's right.
Yes, that's correct. Yes. He has lots of different business interests around the world, but he is he lives in Thailand. He for business purposes there and I think for citizenship purposes took a Thai name. So, yes. So, yeah, that's where he's based, even though a lot of his interests politically seems to reside in the UK.
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Chapter 7: How do current UK political donation rules apply to this situation?
So he's given it to him personally. So this is not a Reform Party donation. This is a donation that he's given to Nigel Farage.
When Nigel Farage, in that period, again, listeners and viewers will remember, but when there was a lot of speculation as to whether he would stand again for reform, because Richard Tice, his now deputy, was then leader of reform, in the months and weeks before the general election in July 2024, this £5 million donation,
gift present was given to Farage personally during that time yes that's right so um so if we if we cast our minds back so you had on um I believe it's the 23rd of May um Nigel Farage had ruled himself out and then and said look I am going to keep being politically active I'm going to campaign for reform but I've chosen not to stand as an MP at this time
And that was in response, partly it was assumed to the sort of furore that was building about will he, won't he stand. And then by June 3rd, it was revealed, trailed, and then he made a public announcement on June 4th. of 2024, that he was going to stand, that he was going to stand for the seat of Clacton-on-Sea.
And if you cast your minds back, you'll also remember that there was a candidate that reform had put in place. This was how last minute things were. And that candidate was then replaced by Nigel Farage.
And this seems an extraordinary amount of money to just give somebody. An extraordinary amount of money that has not hitherto before your story been disclosed.
Yes, I mean, certainly to me £5 million would seem a large sum. I think to most people, most readers, members of the public, £5 million is a lot of money. And before this story, we knew absolutely nothing about it.
It hadn't been declared anywhere, either to the Electoral Commission or to the, they call it the Register of Members' Interests, but the parliamentary log that is kept of all the financial interests and benefits that MPs may receive. So without this story, we simply wouldn't know about it.
Do we know what the money has been used for?
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Chapter 8: What does this mean for the future of Reform UK and its policies?
At this time, he wasn't politically active. You know, they said he'd essentially retired from politics at that time of the gift. But we know and we've reported that it was within weeks of him making that decision to stand as an MP.
Within weeks of it. So because I mean, obviously, again, listeners will remember that. Nigel Farage has actually said that he wasn't going to stand again. He'd confirmed it online. He said he would do his bit for the campaign, but that it wasn't the right time for him personally to get back on the front line of British politics.
He said at that time that he wanted to preserve his freedom to go and campaign in the US presidential election, which is If I recall correctly, he said was of far more importance than the UK general election. But this donation or gift is not really a donation. This gift takes place shortly after that. And then Farage does say that he wants to go back in.
Now, as you say, they say that it's unconditional or unrelated. But the timing is quite striking, isn't it?
I think it is, and it's a point we'd love to have addressed more clearly, to have them explain more about the timing. I mean, he has said that he had ongoing security threats. He cited... in his interview with The Telegraph, an attempt to firebomb his home that actually happened quite some time after the gift was made. So we know it was weeks before he announced he was going to stand as an MP.
He made that announcement in June 2024. The firebombing incident he described actually happened in 2025. So there is a gap there. But he has said that there are sort of ongoing security concerns throughout this period. And they've been very emphatic that the gift and his decision to stand are unrelated.
but I think it still raises a lot of questions about maybe the limits on the declaration systems that we have. The big question is, Now, it's been referred to, sorry to use jargon, but the parliamentary watchdog for standards, shall we say. You know, it's been referred to them by the Conservative Party to say, you know, should this have been declared as a donation or even as a gift?
Because there are some rules governing MPs that even when someone gives them money, If there's any reason to believe that it might be used in any way for political purposes, then it ought to be declared. So there isn't sort of a question now as to whether or not what will happen with that referral and whether or not there's a judgment will be made that perhaps it ought to have been declared.
Well, I want to come back to that, but just to kind of let people in behind the curtain a little bit. You've already referred to it, but just... Just take us through.
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