Reform’s Robert Jenrick ‘very confident’ £72m donations are ‘perfectly legal’ – UK politics live | Politics
Jenrick says he is ‘very confident’ donations are ‘perfectly legal’
Earlier, Jenrick on Sky defended the donations saying he was “very confident” they’re “perfectly legal”.
When pressed on whether Reform would return the donations if they were found to violate new law: “Who knows? I mean, if people try and do something retrospectively, then maybe.”
To recap: In the past 48 hours, Reform UK has received a staggering sum of £72m from two crypto billionaires, the largest single donations in British political history.
Christopher Harborne’s £36m donation, which he announced in the Telegraph newspaper yesterday, matches that given by another cryptocurrency investor Ben Delo on Friday.
Key events
As warnings surrounding the threats of AI continue to make headlines this weekend my colleague Dan Milmo has written a less pessimistic piece on the topic in his feature from the AI bootcamps aimed at addressing UK youth unemployment.
The UK government is trying to address two of the greatest challenges facing the national economy: AI and youth unemployment and a pilot project in Preston comes with apprenticeship offer for Neets at end of three-week course.
You can read more on it here:
George Osborne calls for UK to rejoin EU customs union and boost trade
Elsewhere today the former chancellor George Osborne said Britain’s economy had “fallen off a cliff” since Brexit and that rejoining the European Union’s customs union would be the fastest route to recovery.
You can read more on that here
Only slim chance target of building 1.5m homes in England will be met, minister says
While talking to the media this morning Angela Rayner also admitted that there was only a slim chance government will meet target of building 1.5m home.
Labour’s manifesto pledge to build 1.5m houses by the next election was a “stretch target”, the communities secretary added, but said it was not being ditched and she was “definitely not giving up”.
My colleague Jessica Elgot has her reported in detail here:
Angela Rayner said she was pleased AI companies are “talking about the threats as well as the opportunities” after Elon Musk and Sam Altman backed a call for the industry to slow down development, PA reports.
It comes after Anthropic boss Dario Amodei said he was concerned that since this summer, AI has been “advancing drastically faster”.
Given the rate of development, Mr Amodei is worried that within six to 12 months, AI could be capable of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet.
The entrepreneur, whose company is behind the AI assistant Claude, shared a three-part plan for building the technology at a “balanced rate”.
Rayner told Sky News: “I’m pleased that these companies are also talking about the threats as well as the opportunities that AI presents to us, and we have to work with our international partners, which is what we’re doing.”
Describing the UK as “world leaders” in AI security, the communities and housing secretary added: “We have put robust systems in place here in the UK, like the AI Security Institute, to make sure we’re building resilience so that we get the benefit as well as really understand and protect against any risk.”
Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat told Sky News: “The speed of change is also extraordinary, and this is where actually government can enable a conversation, but we simply do not have the speed to keep up with the advances that are happening.
“And the reality is, we can’t pass laws against mathematics.
“These are mathematical equations that are being developed in greater and greater speed, and we need to maintain that ability to protect ourselves.”
£72m Reform injection equivalent to entire year of political donations
Let’s put this £72m weekend windfall for Reform in context – not only the largest single donations to a UK political party ever, but also the equivalent essentially of an entire year of political donations in the lead-up to a general election.
A total of £79m was donated to UK political parties in 2023, according to the Electoral Commission. A further £84m was given in 2024, the election year.
This is just what’s been publicly logged. Reform is also facing allegations it has tried to hide foreign donations. It denies any wrongdoing.
The data also shows how much has been donated to parties since the 2024 vote (not reflecting Reform’s latest endowments.)
July 2024- June 2026 donations:
– Tories: £37m
– Reform: £35m
– Labour: £21m
– Lib Dems: 17m
– Greens: £1.9m
Will also point out here that across the Sunday politics shows this morning, neither Labour nor the Tories ruled out accepting such huge sums from crypto-billionaires in the future.
Nigel Farage says that donations just go to putting Reform on a “more level playing field” with the more established parties.
Angela Rayner was asked on the BBC, at least three times, whether Labour on principle would have accepted tens of millions of pounds from the industry if they had been offered it.
She declined to give a direct answer, saying instead that the party has “very robust rules and a vetting process for where we accept donations from. And we have refused donations in the past.”
Tom Tugendhat meanwhile highlighted “problematic” areas of the crypto industry, but also didn’t answer the BBC’s question directly.
“Well, look, we’d accept money from reputable sources” he said, before turning to speculation on whether Reform had done their adequate checks.
Jenrick says there’s ‘economic opportunity’ for UK from crypto
Reform has been describing these crypto billionaire donations – again the largest single gift to a British political party – as being from patriotic businessmen who “simply support our agenda”.
Pressed by Laura Kuennsberg on the BBC: “And part of your agenda is being very pro cryptocurrency, which is their business?”
Jenrick replies, “Um, not really”, saying first that he wants “proper” regulation of the digital currency which is a bit of a “Wild West”, and then advancing to the idea of gains for the UK in adopting crypto.
Throughout this morning, he’s been referring to himself as Reform Shadow Chancellor.
“Is there an economic opportunity for the UK from crypto? Yes, and I want, as Reform Shadow Chancellor of UK, to seize that so we can compete with Dubai and the United States.”
“But that’s not what we’re doing here with these donations.”
Reform has said if it wins government, it would raise a law to boost adoption of crypto, including throuhg cutting tax on digital assets. They would also create a bitcoin reserve fund at the Bank of England.
Just wanted to highlight this statement too from Jenrick, insisting to both the BBC and Sky this morning that wealthy donors wouldn’t get formal favours, if Reform were to come into power.
He said “there are all these people in the House of Lords who are Tory donors. 24 out of the last 25 Tory Party treasurers sit in the House of Lords.”
“Reform is different. We are not going to give peerages, or knighthoods, to people who go around giving us donations,” he says.
A reminder that Jenrick was a Tory MP for 12 years (and the former shadow justice secretary) before defecting to Reform in January of this year.
More from Jenrick on the BBC asserting that the donations from the crypto billionaires are legal.
As I sketched out earlier, the Labour government has a package of laws going through parliament right now aimed at stopping foreign money from influencing UK elections.
The foreign donor cap is currently set at £100,000. There are no restrictions on how much citizens living in the UK can give parties. But if a Brit returning to the UK wishes to give more, the new law states that they need to be living in the country for a full calendar year before they can do so.
The issue with the laws perhaps applying retrospectively (i.e. from March) is that this could rule out these £36m a-piece donations from Harborne and Delo, as both of these crypto-billionaires have been living outside of the UK, and Reform may have to return the money.
Jenrick says in the case of Harborne, he won’t go into his personal circumstances but, “even if that were the case, the donation that he’s made would still be a legal one in compliance with the law. So we see no reason why you’d have to return these.”
Over on Sky, Conservative Tom Tugendhat was asked if the Tories were “rattled” by the money going into Reform.
He says he “welcomes people supporting political activity” in a democracy- at this point, Sky’s Rachel Johnson cuts in – “even crypto billionaires who live in Thailand?” (referring to Harborne).
Tugendhat then switches to his second point – the persistent murkiness over where Reform’s funds come from.
He raises the issue of due diligence, noting it’s a legal requirement for each party to rigorously check the sources of their donations and highlights that Reform has faced allegations this past week after a Channel 4 undercover investigation appeared to show Farage’s senior aides attempting to circumvent the rules to accept an otherwise illegal injection of foreign funding.
(Reform denies the allegations but Farage’s chief of staff and head of policy have stepped down and Labour has asked police to investigate possible offences. The Electoral Commission is also considering the allegations.)
Tugendhat goes on to argue that regardless of these donations and huge sums, “British people can’t be bought” and it’s an “illusion” to buy influence in public office.
He then also notes that these tens of millions have come from the crypto industry – noting that it’s the currency commonly used for laundering and to get around sanctions on foreign regimes like Russia and Iran.
Jenrick says he is ‘very confident’ donations are ‘perfectly legal’
Earlier, Jenrick on Sky defended the donations saying he was “very confident” they’re “perfectly legal”.
When pressed on whether Reform would return the donations if they were found to violate new law: “Who knows? I mean, if people try and do something retrospectively, then maybe.”
To recap: In the past 48 hours, Reform UK has received a staggering sum of £72m from two crypto billionaires, the largest single donations in British political history.
Christopher Harborne’s £36m donation, which he announced in the Telegraph newspaper yesterday, matches that given by another cryptocurrency investor Ben Delo on Friday.
Would the new law capping foreign donations then make these latest Reform cheques illegal, if they apply restrospectively? Given both donors resided overseas, presumably at the time of donation.
Rayner says she won’t be drawn on the individual donors in the Reform situation, and she doesn’t know their circumstances- i.e. where they were living at the time of donation- but she lays out what the law would entail, that it would apply from March.
Harborne is still based in Thailand, while Delo is reported to have moved back to the UK since April.
“With the retrospective action, anyone that’s received donations that doesn’t comply with … what is in legislation is currently going through parliament, would have 60 days to return that money,” says Rayner.
”That is not for those individuals, let me be really clear. I do not understand those individual circumstances, but that their retrospective action will apply from the 25th of March.”
Rayner says parliament is looking into new laws on donation caps that could apply retrospectively
Meanwhile on the BBC, the government’s Angela Rayner says the huge sums show it’s all about “who is funding politics and if there are few individuals who fund power to power… in a democracy that is a concern.”
Parliament is currently looking at new laws to cap foreign donations – Rayner again stresses Labour’s line that this restriction when it comes in should apply restrospectively.
Jenrick says donations ‘breakthrough moment’ for party
Sky’s just broadcast an interview with Jenrick who describes the bonanza donations as a “breakthrough moment” for Reform “from two patriotic businessmen”.
(A reminder that Harborne has lived outside of the UK for years and is based in Thailand, and Delo until recently, was living in Hong Kong and was convicted of violating the US Bank Secrecy Act before being pardoned by Trump last year).
Jenrick says the 2 x £36m donations “enables us to be battle ready for the election and to prepare for government.”
He denies that the huge cheques mean that Reform is “in hoc” with the crypto billionaires, and says it wouldn’t buy them peerage or any other formal favours.
Jenrick faces questions over record Reform donations
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s politics live blog in what is a fairly tumultuous period in electoral financing.
To recap: In the past 48 hours, Reform UK has received a staggering sum of £72m from two crypto billionaires, the largest single donations in British political history.
Christopher Harborne’s £36m donation, which he announced in the Telegraph newspaper yesterday, matches that given by another cryptocurrency investor Ben Delo on Friday.
The huge injection into Reform’s coffers obviously help fund the anti-immigration party’s operations leading into the next general election, to be held by 2029. But it has also further muddied the reputation around the party’s finances and who it says it serves. Reform has pledged more crypto-friendly policies i.e. greater adoption of the unregulated currency across the UK if the party were to come into power.
Reform’s economics spokesman Robert Jenrick is on Sky and the BBC this morning to address questions over the massive donations and allegations it has sought to circumvent electoral law to receive foreign donations.
There are also calls now across the political spectrum for a cap on donations from big-moneyed donors in the UK, a restriction that currently only applies to foreign donors.
