Britain’s Nigel Farage’s November 2025 reforms raised 3 million British pounds ($4 million) from Thai crypto investor Christopher Harborne, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The aviation entrepreneur and early crypto supporter, who is one of Reform’s biggest individual funders, donated another $12 million to the party in August 2025, a record single gift to a British political party by a living donor.
The extra gift will strengthen the position of the reformers in the money race of the UK political parties. According to the FT, the party as a whole received about $23 million in 2025, with the Conservatives about $17 million and the ruling Labor party about $10 million.
Harborne, a British citizen based in Thailand and also known as Chakrit Sakunkrit, is an aviation entrepreneur and early crypto investor who owns about 13% of Tether, the issuer of USDt (USDT) in compensation related to the 2016 Bitfinex hack.
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He has previously donated to the Conservatives under Boris Johnson and gave Farage’s Brexit Party nearly $13 million over the 2019-2020 period, making him one of the UK’s most important individual funders of the right wing.
Reform, which became the first UK party to officially accept bitcoin and other crypto donations after Farage announced at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, has promised to introduce a “Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill” if the party wins the next UK general election, expected in August 2029.
UK mulls ban on crypto donations as cash surges
The party’s growing war chest comes as the UK debates whether to limit the use of digital assets in politics.
Ministers discussed options under the new election bill, which could include an outright ban on crypto donations, stricter disclosure rules and tighter controls on shell companies and unincorporated associations used for money transfers.
Pressure is also mounting in parliament for a temporary moratorium on crypto political donations. Matt Western, chairman of the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy, in a letter to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on February 23 called for limits on funds transferred through mixers or unknown sources and the requirement to convert any crypto to fiat within 48 hours.
The calls reflect growing concern among British MPs, security agencies and anti-corruption campaigners that vast crypto assets could be used to track foreign or illicit influence on British politics.
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