Why has Nigel Farage taken £5m from a crypto billionaire?

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1:52You may remember not so long ago that British politics was convulsed by so-called Freebiegate. Keir Starmer and Labour ministers being lacerated for accepting corporate hospitality, clothes, gifts from party donors. It was an early part of Keir Starmer's problems. But by comparison to party funding, you can really argue that all of that was small, almost non-existent beer. And in the last weeks, the funding of one party in particular has attracted more and more attention. A party which tells us they're heading for Downing Street, a party tipped to top the poll in next week's English local elections.

2:31Reform. We now know that Nigel Farage's party has been given over£12 million from a single donor, a Thai-based British businessman, crypto-billionaire Christopher Harbourn. And we also now know, courtesy of The Guardian, that it isn't just enormous sums flowing into party coffers. It has been revealed this week that just before Nigel Farage was elected an MP in 2024, Mr Harbourn gave Mr Farage a present, a gift of£5 million, never before disclosed. This is a total financial commitment from one man to reform and Farage personally of at least 17 million pounds over barely two years. On today's show then, how could it be that reform, a party we are told that is preparing for government, could become so dependent on a Thai-based crypto billionaire?

3:31What does it say about the way that we fund politics, about politics to come? And what, if anything, does Mr Harbourn want for all that money? Welcome to the News Agents.

3:49OK, let's start with the basics. Reform likes to say that it is a new party, and of course in relative terms compared to Labour or the Conservatives, that's true. But it is in fact a rebranded version of the Brexit party. You'll remember them, founded as a successor to Nigel Farage's UKIP to try and kill off Theresa May's ill-fated Brexit deal. I think politics is broken. I did say that if I ever had to come back into the political fray, next time it'd be no more Mr Nice Guy. Now that party won the European elections of 2019. May's deal went down. Eventually, the Brexit Party under Farage sort of backed Boris Johnson in the general election of that year.

4:35We had Brexit and then, well, the Brexit Party became something else. In 2021, it was rebranded as Reform UK. Now, it largely languished under the Conservatives with the now deputy leader Richard Tice in charge. And then, after much speculation, Nigel Farage made yet another one of his fabled re-entries into British politics, announcing that he would stand in the general election of 2024, having only previously just said that he wouldn't. So I am going to stand in this election. I'll be launching my candidacy at midday tomorrow in the Essex seaside town of Clacton. So midday tomorrow, Clacton at the end of the pier.

5:24But perhaps perhaps more important than that. I've made a far bigger decision than that. I'm coming back as leader of Reform UK, but not just for this election campaign. I'm coming back for the next five years. Reform did pretty well in that general election. From a near standing start, they won 14.3 % of the national vote, just over 4 million votes overall and five seats in Parliament. Since the election, they quickly established a consistent polling lead over Tories and Labour in well over 100 polls now, sometimes substantial ones. Although you will note that the trend of how big the lead is recently has been on the down.

6:09Boosted by this success, though, they've accumulated a load of former Tory cabinet ministers and MPs to the cause. It is impressive stuff, politically speaking. And the way reform like to portray it is as a people's army, a bottom-up revolt against the political classes. The Reform Party is all the momentum in British politics. We are now polling at 20 % and we are embarking on the most ambitious plan to build a grassroots local campaign-winning machine across the country. But it turns out that this isn't all a grassroots effort. All of that slick, professionalised operation has to be paid for, which has led to the question with which we started.

6:51Where is reform getting its money? Well, it turns out, unusually, overwhelmingly, reform has depended on one man. This guy, Christopher Harbourn, or should I say, Chakrit Sakunkrit, a British citizen, but now Thai-based, with a Thai name, billionaire, who has made much of his money in crypto. He's a highly private person. But here he is talking about his wellness retreat, Kamalaya, on Koh Samui. One of the things that we try to help all of our guests at Kamalaya is change one thing on each visit. Just one thing. Now, it isn't unusual for political parties to rely on big money donations from individuals.

7:38Indeed, Harbourn previously backed Boris Johnson's conservatives. Harbourn went on to accompany Boris Johnson on a trip to Ukraine. What is unusual is the extraordinary size of Harbourn's donations to reform in such a short space of time and how apparently dependent reform has become on this one donor. In 2025, Harbourn gave the single biggest donation in British political history to reform, some£9 million. Yes, you heard that right,£9 million. And he wasn't done. Just before 2025's end, he donated a further£3 million to the party, bringing the total financial support to reform from Harbourn to a minimum of£12 million in just one year.

8:34Now, that is a huge number in absolute terms, but it's massive relatively too, because bear in mind that the total amount raised for all UK parties in 2025, according to the Electoral Commission, was some£65 million. That means that the£12 million Harbourn gave reform was more or less about a fifth of all the money donated to all the political parties in Britain in 2025. Consider that in the quarter where Harbourn made the second£3 million donation, the party's next biggest donation, reforms, was a relatively meagre£250 ,000. So the next lot of donations for reform behind Harbourn are about 12 times smaller than the sort of money that Harbourn is giving the party.

9:26In 2025, reform raised about 18 million overall. 12 million came from Harbourn. So in other words, one donor was responsible for two thirds of the party's money. Now, as I say, big money donations are not unusual in British politics, but it is unusual for a party to raise so much money from one person. And it has led to questions about what influence and power it might provide Mr Harbourn if reform were to get into government. This is not least because Christopher Harbourn has been described as a crypto billionaire. And it has been noted that reform, though they and he deny any link here, is perhaps the most pro-crypto of any major British political party.

10:16Farage has talked about making the UK a crypto-friendly environment. He's criticised what he sees as an over-regulation of digital assets. And Farage has even personally backed a crypto venture, reportedly to the tune of£215 ,000 from his own money, headed up by Liz Truss's former chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, Stack BTC. Nigel Farage is a great political disruptor. But beyond all of that, he's someone who's championed Bitcoin over many years. And we're delighted to have him. But of course, there's form here, because across the Atlantic, Nigel Farage's great ally and friend Donald Trump has made huge sums, perhaps over a billion dollars in crypto, as has his wider family, an industry he, as president, now regulates.

11:09I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world, and we'll get it done. harbourn himself is a major shareholder in tether registered in the central american dictatorship of el salvador with a tiny staff tether has been described as the most profitable company per employee in history it has issued 184 billion dollars in digital cash known as stable coins Here's Farage talking, ILBC, about Tether. You know, Tether is a stablecoin. Stablecoins are the way which money goes from conventional currencies through into cryptocurrencies and back again.

11:56Tether is about to be valued as a$500 billion company. You know, stablecoins, crypto, this world is enormous. And I've been urging for years that London should embrace it. We should become a global trading centre for this stuff under proper regulation. And the governor of the Bank of England earlier this week indicated that nobody, no individual should be allowed to have more than£10 ,000 worth of stable coins, to which some of my friends have said, should we just emigrate? Reform also enjoys the support of Ben D 'Lo, a Hong Kong-based, yes, you guessed it, crypto billionaire who has promised to move back to the UK to avoid a proposed Labour government law to ban foreign-based donors from donating to UK political parties.

12:40A ban Mr Harbourn, for his part, has promised to get around, saying, I'll just donate even more. And we now know, thanks to exclusive Guardian reporting this week, that Harbourn also donated£5 million personally to Nigel Farage before the general election, a previously undisclosed sum. The Tories have referred Farage to the parliamentary authorities asking for a standards investigation. Well, the initial thing you think is that's a huge donation, but there are no limits on donations, so be it. But the next thing you're thinking is, well, the rules are there to be followed and we're all held by the same rules.

13:24And so I saw the comments in the piece in The Guardian about the donation and Nigel Farage saying he didn't need to declare it because a it was a gift and b it was before he was a member of parliament well whether it's a gift or not is irrelevant according to the rules and he was before he became a member of parliament but it was in the 12 months prior to him becoming a member of parliament and we know section 5 of the house of commons code of conduct states that you must declare all that kind of income. It's very important that other parliamentarians in debates know potentially any influence that might have been brought to bear on a member of parliament and that is all properly declared and indeed the voting public can see that as well.

14:09I think the other background to this is from a cryptocurrency billionaire in the purse of Christopher Harbone who made this donation and we know that reform for example have brought forward policies that are very beneficial to those people involved in the cryptocurrency sector, tax breaks and the like, which are very, very beneficial. So it would be wrong on two scores. Basically, the fact he hasn't declared them, he hasn't followed the rules, and potentially that may have influenced Nigel Farage's position on cryptocurrency. So we'd like that to be investigated by the relevant authorities. And if it is shown that Nigel Farage has made mistakes or done something wrong, then he's held to account for that.

14:53Remember all that talk about reform, getting a donation from Elon Musk? Well, it turns out they really don't need him. When we come back, we'll be talking to the journalist from The Guardian, Anna Isaac, who broke that£5 million Farage donation story just this week. Stay with us.

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16:32So now let's start and delve deep into this curious world of Nigel Farage's finances, but also Reform's finances. Can we just start by explaining who, give us a bit of a biography of who Christopher Harbourn is, because by definition, the vast, vast majority of people up to this point have never heard of him. Yes, so Christopher Harbourn is a billionaire. He's spending most of his time in Thailand these days, but he is British-born. um he's acquired much of his wealth through a 12 stake in a um cryptocurrency called tether um and he has for a long time um since at least 2019 been a big backer of the brexit party which eventually became as we know now the reform uk party so he's a long-standing supporter of it um he has also given money it's important to note to the conservative party previously and he's made a gift to the office of Boris Johnson before.

17:37He made a million pound gift to that office. So he's a well-established political donor in the UK. And primarily now, even though you say he's British, he is based, he lives in Thailand. That's right. Yes, that's correct. Yes, he has lots of different business interests around the world, but he lives in Thailand. And he, for business purposes there, and I think for citizenship purposes, took a Thai name. So, yes, that's where he's based, even though a lot of his interests politically seems to reside in the UK. So he's a strong advocate of Brexit. He supported the Conservative Party. He supported the Brexit Party, which listeners and viewers might remember was the predecessor vehicle to reform.

18:23And now he has become an important donor for reform. but also as per your story to Nigel Farage personally. Can you tell us about what you've discovered? Yes. So what was already known about Harbour in recent years is that he made the biggest donation of a living donor to a political party. So he'd given nine million to reform in a single go. He then gave additional sums, so taking its total to 12 million. And that's in 2025. but what I have uncovered is that he also made a gift of£5 million to Nigel Farage weeks before Farage announced that he would be standing as an MP in the 2024 election. So it's a really interesting development I think in building up a picture about the relationship between the two.

19:16So he's given it to him personally so this is not a reform party donation this is a donation that he's given to Nigel Farage, when Nigel Farage in that period, again, listeners and viewers will remember, but when there was a lot of speculation as to whether he would stand again for reform, because Richard Tice, his now deputy, was then leader of reform in the months and weeks before the general election in July 2024, this£5 million gift present was given to Farage personally during that time. Yes, that's right. so um so if we if we cast our minds back so you had on um i believe it's the 23rd of may um nigel frosh had ruled himself out and then and said look i i'm going to keep being politically active i'm going to campaign for reform but i've chosen not to stand as an mp at this time um and that was in response partly it was assumed to the to the sort of furore that was building about will he won't he stand um and then um by june 3rd it was revealed um trailed and then he made a public announcement on june 4th um of 2024 that he was going to stand that he was going to stand for the seat of clacton on sea and if you cast your minds back you'll also remember that there was a candidate that reform had put in place this was how last minute things were um and um that that candidate was then replaced by nigel farage and this seems an extraordinary amount of money to just give somebody an extraordinary amount of money that has not hitherto before your story been disclosed yes i mean certainly certainly to me five million pounds would seem um a large sum i think to to most people most readers members of public five million pounds is is is is a lot of money um and before this story we knew absolutely nothing about it it hadn't been declared anywhere either to the electoral commission or to the they call it the register of members interests but the parliamentary log that is kept to all the financial interests and benefits that MPs may receive so so without this story we simply wouldn't know about it.

21:23Do we know what the money has been used for? Both Nigel Farage and Christopher Harbon took an unusual step which was to give an interview about the gift um once they knew this this story um once they've been approached about this story not to you not not not to us sadly although they're always welcome to have an interview with us i'm very very willing and uh able and glad to to do an interview with them should they should they be willing um the offers out there um um but they said that this is for security so they cited some examples a range of examples of um the security threats that Nigel Farage has received.

21:58And just to be really clear on one point, MPs' safety and the safety of people operating in the political sphere in the country is really serious. We have seen MPs lose their lives in the line of carrying out their public works. So it's certainly the case that there are security issues that people may face. I think there are still, though, some some questions to ask about um why the money might have been given in this way for security purposes um but nigel forage's account is he said this is to keep me safe and secure for the rest of my life that's why um christopher harbourn um um gave it to me um um because and he said it was christopher was an ardent supporter of his so that's the account that nigel forage has given and um christopher harbourn has confirmed in a separate interview he said you know it was for security So that's that's their position and that's their explanation for the gift.

22:52And they said it was unconditional and unrelated to whether or not he would or would not stand again. And that it was from a position where they've said, you know, at this time he wasn't politically active. You know, they said he'd essentially retired from politics at that time of the gift. But we know reported that it was within weeks of him making that decision to stand as an MP. Within weeks of it. So because I mean, obviously, again, listeners will remember that Nigel Farage has actually said that he wasn't going to stand again. He'd confirmed it online. He said he would do his bit for the campaign, but that it wasn't the right time for him personally to get back on the front line of British politics.

23:34He said at that time that he wanted to preserve his freedom to go and campaign in the US presidential election, which is, if I recall correctly, he said was a far more importance than the UK general election. But this donation or gift is not really a donation. This this this gift takes place shortly after that. And then Farage does say that he wants to go back in. Now, as you say, they say that it's unconditional or unrelated. But the timing is quite striking, isn't it? I think it is. And it's, you know, it's a point we'd love to have addressed more clearly, you know, to have them explain more about the timing.

24:16I mean, he has said that, you know, he had ongoing security threats. He cited in his interview with The Telegraph an attempt to firebomb his home that actually happened quite some time after the gift was made. So we know it was weeks before he announced he was going to stand as an MP. He made that announcement in June 2024. The firebombing incident he described actually happened in 2025. So there is a gap there. But he has said that there are sort of ongoing security concerns throughout this period. And they've been very emphatic that the gift and his decision to stand are unrelated. but I think it still raises a lot of questions about maybe the limits on the declaration systems that we have.

25:05The big question is, now it's been referred to, sorry to use jargon, but the parliamentary watchdog for standards, shall we say, it's been referred to them by the Conservative Party to say, should this have been declared as a donation or even as a gift? because there are some rules governing MPs that even when someone gives them money, if there's any reason to believe that it might be used in any way for political purposes, then it ought to be declared. So there isn't sort of a question now as to whether or not what will happen with that referral and whether or not a judgment will be made that perhaps it ought to have been declared.

25:46Well, I want to come back to that, but just to kind of let people in behind the curtain a little bit, You've already referred to it. But just just take us through. You get this story, which is obviously a big story, and it comes off the back of separate reporting that your newspaper, The Guardian has been doing about Christopher Harbourn and about his relationship with Farage and the Reform Party. You get this story. You approach them, obviously, as any good journalist does for comment and to get their side of the story and so on. And what happened? How did how did they respond to it? We approached them well ahead of publication, as you would expect, to give people a fair chance to reply.

26:27We lay it out a little in our story, but Reform UK didn't respond with any comment at all. We approached the Director of Communications and there was no response. and then they came back 24 hours later and they said oh actually you contacted the wrong person and you should have contacted someone else and then we got a response from their lawyers asking for more time so we gave them an additional 24 hours and then they made a decision that they would give an interview to a different newspaper to try and get ahead of the story so that was their approach and that was Reform UK's approach and we did contact lawyers acting for Christopher Harbourn, having been in touch with some of his businesses.

27:16And they asked for more time. We also granted them that. And then he also made a decision to give an interview to a different paper. So they actually didn't respond to what we call either your invitation to comment or your right of reply in journo jargon. So they didn't get back to you actually addressing the fundamentals and the questions that you had, even though you gave them the opportunity to do so. But they did choose, miraculously enough, to go to another newspaper and give an interview where they revealed this gift at the same time, which is, as we call in the trade, trying to spike your story.

27:53Yes, that's a decision they made. You'll know from, you know, you've put in many a right of reply, I'm sure, in that this is good practice, right? We as journalists, we go to people that are subject to a story and we ask them for their account, you know, explanation of events, if there's any comment they might add, any context they might add, because you can get a piece of information as a journalist. But that context that someone might be able to offer you can be absolutely critical. So it's a really important part of a reasonable, good, fair journalistic practice to do that. But it's tricky if people choose not to engage.

28:30And he's accused you, I think, in this article, Nigel Farage, or at least he's suggested he's intimated that this information that you've acquired has been obtained illegally. What do you say to that? Well, I always act in accordance with our editorial code at The Guardian. We have very strong ethical practices here. It's very, very important to us that everything we do is above board and absolutely critically in the public interest. And so I don't think that's quite correct. Well, and that we should talk about that public interest, because obviously there are questions which we can maybe briefly come back to about the process and whether this should have been declared in some way or whether the parliamentary authorities should have known about it.