Labour says Reform UK donations could face legal limits
Labour says proposed overseas-donor rules could yet affect Reform UK’s £72m in gifts, but Britain still permits unlimited domestic political donations.
British voters face a simple question behind Reform UK donations worth £72m: should two wealthy people be able to give one party more political spending power than millions of voters can match?
Communities Secretary Angela Rayner says two £36m gifts to Reform could face new legal limits if their donors meet proposed overseas-residency tests. Reform says the donations from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne were lawful.
That distinction matters because the Representation of the People Bill has not yet become law. Its second reading took place in the House of Lords on 14 September, and peers can still amend it before it returns to the Commons.
Reform UK donations and the proposed cap
The government’s amendments would cap donations from relevant overseas contributors at £100,000 a year, with the rule applying retrospectively to donations received from 25 March 2026. A returning overseas elector would remain covered until they had lived in Britain for a full calendar year.
Whether either Reform gift is caught depends on facts not established in public reporting, including the donors’ electoral registration and residency status when the money was received. The bill also proposes a moratorium on cryptoasset donations, but there is no public evidence that these gifts were paid in cryptoassets.
Until now, British law has imposed no general ceiling on what an individual or organisation can give a registered political party, provided the donor meets the legal tests and the donation is disclosed. That is why the proposed overseas cap, even if it applies, would not settle the wider question raised by the £72m.
The limit Parliament has not passed
Labour MP Stella Creasy proposed a £100,000 annual cap for most donors, while protecting qualifying trade-union affiliation fees and certain co-operative subscriptions. MPs debated the amendment earlier this month but did not vote on it.
Reform leader Nigel Farage says the gifts help correct a field tilted against challenges to the two-party system. Smaller parties do face entrenched advantages, but handing one party £72m from two billionaires does not make the field level. It makes private wealth a bigger player in it.
The Electoral Commission has said a cap covering all donors could address concern about money buying access or influence, provided Parliament designs rules that cannot be easily evaded. Transparency International UK says donations of £1m or more made up 35% of private political donations in 2024, up from 1% in 2015.
Peers must now decide whether the bill merely tests Reform’s donors, or begins to put British voters ahead of every party’s biggest chequebook.
