Reform UK promised huge donations - where are they?

Farage’s party is still reliant on cash from Richard Tice and familiar names

Nigel’s millions?

Before getting to today’s story, I wanted to tell you about an exciting live discussion on Democracy for Sale this week. I’ll be speaking with author and journalist James Bloodworth about his compelling new book, Lost Boys. We’ll be talking about the manosphere, social media and why, and how, a generation of young men is being targeted and recruited online by the far right. Click here to join on Friday (June 13) at 13.00 BST.

Now to today’s main event.

Nigel Farage said he’d turn Reform into a fundraising juggernaut. He flirted with Elon Musk amid talk of a potential $100 million donation. He brought in luxury property developer Nick Candy as party treasurer, who pledged to deliver dozens of multi-million-pound donors.

But something strange has happened: for all the big talk, Reform doesn’t seem to be raising that much money.

In the first three months of this year, the party brought in just under £1.5 million in donations. That’s not bad for a relatively new political outfit outside an election period. But it’s a far cry from the £40 million Candy vowed to secure.

The picture becomes even less impressive when you drill down into the figures that have been published today by the Electoral Commission.

Reform raised £1.48 million between January and March. Of that, £613,000 came from TISUN Investments Limited—ultimately owned by deputy leader Richard Tice. Another £250,000 came from Fiona Cottrell, mother of George Cottrell, Farage’s former chief of staff. George Cottrell was previously sentenced to eight months in a US federal prison for wire fraud.

In total, 58% of Reform’s funding this quarter came from just two sources closely linked to the party: its deputy leader and a former aide’s family.

There are some intriguing new names among the donors. Century Capital Partners Ltd—ultimately owned by City financier Paul Munford—gave £25,000. So did two ex-Conservative donors: telecoms magnate Bassim Haidar and businessman Mohammed Amersi, formerly a vocal critic of Britain’s ‘access capitalism’.

Other £25,000 donors include haulage firm boss Lorenzo Zaccheo, who has clashed with the Home Office over fines related to migrant stowaways in his trucks, and ‘art patron’ Rachel Verghis.

Tangerine Holdings, owned by AFC Fylde chairman David Haythornthwaite, donated £50,000. So did Nova Venture Holdings, a company controlled by US-based oil and gas investor Jacques Tohme.

Still, this is far short of the big money Candy was expected to bring in. According to the Financial Times, some inside the party are growing frustrated that his promised mega-donations have failed to appear.

Instead, Reform remains heavily dependent on a small core of long-standing backers. As Democracy for Sale has previously reported, more than 80% of all donations since the party’s Brexit Party days in 2019 have come from just five people: Richard Tice, Fiona Cottrell, cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne, financier Jeremy Hosking, and metals magnate David Lilley.

Despite the lack of new big-ticket donors, Reform has been spending freely. In April, the Liberal Democrats accused the party of spending more than £2 million on a local elections mailshot campaign—an enormous sum in the context of British politics.

Reform claims to have over 100,000 paying supporters. But unusually for a UK political party, it does not declare any membership income in its annual company accounts.

Former leader Tice told Democracy for Sale last year that he had stopped personally donating to the party in 2023 because “the need had stopped.” But the latest filings show he continues to bankroll it through his investment company.

Candy, meanwhile, had promised a “seven-figure” personal donation. So far, he’s only delivered £313,000, according to The FT.

That may explain why Farage recently announced that Reform would start accepting cryptocurrency donations—long associated with money laundering and illicit finance. Candy, for his part, has reportedly been trying to rally support from wealthy Britons in tax havens.

By contrast, the Conservatives appear to be doing considerably better on the fundraising front. Despite ongoing scandals and internal divisions, the party raised over £3.4 million in the first quarter of 2025.

Video games tycoon Jeremy Elliott San gave £1 million to the Tories. Other big donors included party treasurer Graham Edwards, former Institute of Economic Affairs chair Neil Record, and philanthropist Ken Costa—all of whom have previously donated to the Conservatives.

Labour, meanwhile, raised £2.4 million in the same period. That included a £3,000 donation from Invicta Public Affairs, a lobbying firm owned by a former Conservative local party chair…. which Labour had previously criticised the Tories for accepting a donation from.

Labour also received £35,000 from Lord Waheed Alli—who reportedly blocked plans to tighten the UK’s political finance laws.

Now, with the government expected to announce an Election Bill in the coming months, experts and campaigners are again highlighting the need to strengthen Britain’s porous political funding laws, especially to keep out foreign donations.

“Some parties are heavily dependent on a very small number of extremely wealthy people, which does nothing for the view that democracy is for sale,” Steve Goodrich, head of research at Transparency International, told us.

“The public think big money buys influence in politics, and a slurry of scandals in recent years supports that view. You can't protect UK democracy without tackling its corrosive big donor culture.”

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