Britain rolled out tougher rules on overseas political donations on Monday, the government’s latest attempt to keep foreign money out of its elections. Housing Minister Steve Reed put it bluntly, calling the target “dodgy funding”.
The backstory matters here. Last year a former Reform UK politician was jailed for taking bribes to make pro-Russia speeches, and the government ordered a review into foreign interference. That review concluded Britain has a persistent problem: Russia, China and Iran keep trying to influence and undermine its democracy.
What changes
Three things, per the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
First, candidates must now declare any donation over £2,230 received before they formally became a candidate, and prove the money came from a legitimate source. Until now, pre-candidacy donations sat in a grey zone.
Second, people who move to the UK from overseas must live there permanently for a year before they can donate £100,000 or more.
Third, company donations will be measured against past post-tax profits instead of revenue. The point is to stop shell companies with big turnover and no real UK business from writing cheques to parties.
Reed said the government was holding overseas donors to tougher standards and requiring candidates to show where their money comes from, describing it as action to protect the integrity of British elections against threats from abroad.
These changes stack on top of the March rules, which capped donations from Britons living abroad at £100,000 a year and banned crypto donations outright until a workable regulatory system exists.
The Farage question
The timing is hard to separate from Nigel Farage. The Reform UK leader, whose party has led national polls for over a year, is under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog over a £5 million ($6.68 million) donation from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. The money arrived before Farage announced he would stand as an MP, which is exactly the window the new declaration rule now covers.
Harborne is not a small player in Reform’s finances. Electoral Commission data shows he supplied about two-thirds of the party’s funding last year. Reform says no rules were broken.
Farage’s week got worse on Sunday, when he was referred to the standards watchdog a second time after a report that he failed to declare other benefits.
