Two Crypto Billionaires Donate £72 Million to Reform UK in Under 24 Hours

The Donations That Broke Every Record

On the evening of Friday, 11 September 2026, Ben Delo published an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph announcing a £36 million donation to Reform UK, Nigel Farage's right-wing party. Less than 24 hours later, Christopher Harborne — a Thailand-based investor — announced a matching £36 million gift. Together the two donations total £72 million, or roughly $97 million at current exchange rates.

According to data from the UK Electoral Commission, every British political party combined received £64.8 million in donations during all of 2025. Each individual £36 million donation from Delo and Harborne alone exceeds that full-year total. The Guardian described the gifts as "jointly the largest individual donations to a UK political party" ever recorded, a characterisation consistent with the Electoral Commission's published figures.

Reform UK currently holds eight seats in the House of Commons, compared with Labour's 408. The party won more local council seats than any other party in England in the spring 2026 elections. The sudden influx of funds from two donors who grew rich trading Bitcoin and cryptocurrency derivatives could reshape how quickly Reform builds a national campaign operation ahead of the next general election.

The Two Men Behind the Money

Ben Delo co-founded BitMEX in 2014. BitMEX is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange that lets traders place bets on future price moves of Bitcoin and other digital assets without holding the coins themselves. At its peak, BitMEX processed billions of dollars in daily trading volume and became one of the most-cited platforms in the derivatives market. Delo stepped away from active management before his legal troubles began in the United States.

Christopher Harborne holds significant stakes in Tether, the company that issues USDT, the world's most widely used stablecoin. A stablecoin is a digital token designed to stay at $1.00 by holding dollar-denominated assets in reserve. Harborne operates partly under a Thai alias, Chakrit Sakunkrit, in some business contexts, according to press reports citing public filings. He is based in Thailand and has largely avoided the public spotlight despite his financial scale.

Neither Delo nor Harborne donated in cryptocurrency. Both gifts were paid in British pounds sterling. That distinction matters because the United Kingdom banned political donations made in cryptocurrency in March 2026 — part of a broader legislative push around bitcoin regulation ahead of the next election cycle. The gifts are fully legal under current UK electoral law, and both men meet the definition of permissible donors as British citizens or registered UK voters.

An Active Police Probe Was Already Open When the Money Arrived

Two days before either donation was announced, London's Metropolitan Police opened a criminal investigation into Reform UK. The probe, begun on Wednesday, 10 September 2026, followed a Channel 4 News undercover investigation. Journalists had captured Reform officials on hidden camera apparently discussing how to disguise foreign contributions, which are illegal under UK electoral law. The Metropolitan Police confirmed the investigation was active and ongoing.

Reform UK denied wrongdoing and said the Channel 4 footage was edited misleadingly. Nigel Farage told reporters the party had done nothing illegal. Neither Ben Delo nor Christopher Harborne is named in the Metropolitan Police investigation — the undercover footage did not involve them, and their donations came after the investigation opened. Both men are British-linked citizens or residents, making their contributions permissible under electoral law regardless of the probe.

The sequencing matters. The police probe was open when the £72 million arrived, meaning the record-breaking gifts landed at a party under active criminal scrutiny. Journalists and opposition MPs drew attention to this timing in press reports. Reform UK now faces simultaneous scrutiny from both the Metropolitan Police and the Electoral Commission, whose disclosure rules require the party to report each donation within weeks of receiving it.

• Wednesday, 10 September 2026: Metropolitan Police opens investigation following Channel 4 News report
• Friday, 11 September: Ben Delo announces £36 million donation in the Daily Telegraph
• Saturday, 12 September: Christopher Harborne announces matching £36 million gift

A Guilty Plea, a Presidential Pardon, and a Prior Gift

In 2022, Ben Delo pleaded guilty in a US federal court to violating the Bank Secrecy Act, a US anti-money-laundering statute. The charge concerned BitMEX's failure to build systems to detect and report money laundering. A court sentenced Delo to probation. BitMEX separately paid a $100 million fine to resolve related US charges. Delo's Daily Telegraph op-ed announcing the donation made no mention of this history.

US President Donald Trump granted Delo a presidential pardon on 27 March 2025. Trump issued pardons to several cryptocurrency executives around the same period. A presidential pardon erases a federal conviction under US law but has no effect in the United Kingdom. The pardon is part of Delo's public record, and both Decrypt and the Associated Press noted it in their coverage of the donation announcement.

Christopher Harborne previously gave Nigel Farage a personal gift of £5 million before Farage won his House of Commons seat. Parliament's standards commissioner is investigating whether Farage should have declared that payment as a financial interest. Farage says the money was personal, not political. That investigation is ongoing and legally separate from the Metropolitan Police criminal probe.

How £72 Million in 24 Hours Rewrote British Political Fundraising

The two gifts will appear in Reform UK's next quarterly disclosure to the Electoral Commission. UK parties must report donations above £7,500, and those records are publicly searchable. No single donor had previously come close to giving £36 million to a British party in a single quarter, according to the commission's historical data. The formal disclosures will confirm in the public record what the party and donors announced in press statements.

The donations raise a question UK campaign finance law has not fully answered: how should the political system respond when individuals who built wealth through largely unregulated global cryptocurrency markets inject that wealth into domestic party politics through fully legal sterling payments? The March 2026 ban on crypto donations closed one route, but wealth tied to the bitcoin price and exchange equity remains freely convertible into pounds and legally donatable.

For Reform UK, the £72 million changes the arithmetic of British party competition. Labour spent roughly £12 million on the 2024 general election campaign. A party with significantly more available for the next cycle could fund a national canvassing operation, sustained advertising, and candidate recruitment at a scale British politics has rarely seen from a party holding only eight seats in Parliament.