Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has received a second substantial donation from Thailand-based tech investor Christopher Harborne, propelling the party’s fundraising figures beyond those of both Labour and the Conservatives last year. Harborne, who was born in the UK, provided £3mn to the party in November 2025.
Crypto Mogul Harborne Gives Another Multi-Million Pound Donation to Reform UK
5 March 2026 - 17:19 CET
By Stu Clelland
The contribution follows a £9mn donation from Harborne in August 2025, which remains the largest single gift to a British political party by a living donor. According to data from the Electoral Commission, Reform UK’s total cash intake for the final quarter of last year reached £5.5mn. During the same period, the Conservative Party attracted £2.3mn while the Labour Party trailed with £1.7mn.
Shift in political financing
Throughout 2025, Reform received a total of £18.5mn in cash donations, with roughly 65% of that total originating from Harborne. This war chest allowed Farage’s populist platform to outspend the Tories, who took in £13.4mn, and Labour, which secured £8.2mn.
Harborne, who is also known as Chakrit Sakunkrit in Thailand, is a prominent figure in the digital asset space. According to a legal filing from March 2024, he held a stake in Tether (USDT), the world's largest stablecoin issuer, and its associated exchange, Bitfinex. His political involvement is not new; he previously donated more than £10mn to the Brexit Party, a former name of Reform UK, between 2019 and 2021.
Harborne’s financial muscle is supplemented by other high-net-worth individuals. In the final quarter of 2025, Reform UK also secured £250,000 from biotech entrepreneur David John Grainger and a similar sum from double-glazing mogul Gary Dutton.
Review of political donations
Philip Rycroft, a retired senior civil servant, is currently carrying out a review of into foreign financial interference in British politics. When the review was announced in Dec 2025, the UK government said it "will focus on the effectiveness of the UK’s political finance laws, as well as the safeguards in place to protect our democracy from illicit money from abroad, including cryptocurrencies."
The review was triggered after Reform UK's former Wales leader, Nathan Gill, was jailed for ten and a half years for taking bribes from pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.
There is no suggestion that either Harborne or Reform UK have acted in any way illegally in making or accepting this donation.
