Nigel Farage’s push to get to Downing Street has received a huge boost after the latest figures on donations reveal that aviation entrepreneur Christopher Harborne gave Reform UK £9 million.
The former Tory donor made his money as an aviation entrepreneur and crypto investor and was born in Britain but now lives in Thailand.
Previously, he gave sizeable donations to the Brexit Party – Reform UK’s predecessor – in 2019 and 2020, but had not donated to politics for five years.
Reform UK’s total donations of £10.5 million were the largest of any party during the period, followed by the Conservative Party which received just under £7 million.
Labour received £2.5 million and donations totalling just over £2 million were given to the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Harborne is yet another former ally of Boris Johnson to have backed Farage and Reform UK. He travelled with Mr Johnson to Ukraine when he was prime minister and had given him a well publicised £1 million donation.
It comes as the late More in Common polling puts Reform a long way ahead on 30 per cent with the Tories and Labour both on 21 per cent.
Reform was also helped with a £500,000 donation from property developer Nick Candy, who was a high profile defector from the Tories last year.
Another £100,000 from William Alan McIntosh, the founder of Emerald Investment Partners, an investment company. Reform was also given a £50,000 donation by Viscountess Rothermere, the wife of the owner of the Daily Mail and its parent company, DMGT.
It is believed that the £9 million given to Reform UK on 1 August this year is the largest political donation on record from a living person, and second only to who Lord Sainsbury left £10 million to the Conservatives in his will in 2023 after his death.
The lack of big donations had previously been one of the biggest question marks over whether Mr Farage and Reform UK could translate support in the polls with success at general elections.
It provides money for them to develop their policies as well as invest in their campaign machine both on the ground and through national advertising.
In the previous round of donations Reform had struggled coming in third behind the Tories and Labour.
The donations come amid a row over Labour postponing new mayoral elections by two years to 2028 because they are concerned that Reform will sweep them all next May.
