Richard Tice has given millions to keep Reform afloat - why?
Reform UK is a private company owned by Nigel Farage. But leader Tice has ploughed more than £2m in cash and interest-free loans into the populist right party
Reform UK has had a lot of air time over the past few days - some might say too much given that the party won just two council seats and came third in the Blackpool South by-election, albeit just 117 voters behind the Conservatives.
Richard Tice, Reform’s leader, has certainly been bullish, declaring that his party is becoming “the real opposition” to Labour.
Reform - which used to be the Brexit party - has also briefed that it’s building a war chest for the next election.
So where is Reform’s money coming from? Well, like chancellor Jeremy Hunt, it turns out that Tice has been using his own cash to prop up his political career.
Tice has used two companies to channel more than £2 million into Reform over the last four years, according to an analysis of corporate filings and other disclosures by this newsletter.
Tice’s loans
Reform has received more than 50 loans collectively worth around £1.4million from a company called Tisun Investments Ltd since the start of 2020. Tisun Investments is owned by Tice.
Another company controlled by Tice, Leave Means Leave Limited, has also donated more than £1 million to Reform.
Tice, who made millions in property, told this newsletter that he was “very proud” to have put his money into Reform, which he described as a “entrepreneurial political start-up.”
“I'm the boss. I'm the leader. I'm a believer in it,” he said. “In the early days, I was lending money to pay for day-to-day stuff,” Tice said, adding that he stopped giving money to the party last year as membership and donations have increased.
According to Reform’s most recent company accounts, the party still owes Tice £1.083 million. The loans are all interest-free and have no repayment schedule.
A company owned by a political party leader making interest-free loans that might never be paid back looks awfully like a political donation, says Steve Goodrich, head of research at Transparency International.
“Following the money in our democracy should be relatively straightforward, yet the use of companies as conduits for contributions can make it unclear. When you have non-commercial loans being made that may never be redeemed, it raises questions as to whether they are in fact a donation,” Goodrich said.
The Electoral Commission has previously called for a tightening of the rules on companies donating to political parties.
This loan wheeze is not illegal - or new. Arron Banks, Tice’s fellow ‘Bad Boy of Brexit’, loaned his Leave.EU campaign more than £6m. The loans were never called in.
Farage the owner
While Tice’s cash kept Reform afloat at a time when its hardline pro-Brexit, anti-immigrant message struggled to connect with voters, the party is - unusually - a company. Its owner? Former leader Nigel Farage.
Farage is the party’s honorary presenter and holds 53% of the shares in the party - raising questions about Ofcom rules given Farage’s prominent slot on GB News.
Tice, who owns a third of the party but could be removed by Farage, said that Farage’s majority shareholding was “irrelevant”.
“He has no executive function. He's the honorary president. We're very, very strict about that because of Ofcom requirements,” he said.
Tice has denied press reports that Reform offered Conservative MPs cash to defect. In March, onetime Tory co-chair - and GB News presenter - Lee Anderson did cross the floor after he had been suspended by the Conservatives.
Reform cash
There are signs that Reform is bringing in more money. In 2020, it only registered £20,000 in donations but last year that figure was £255,000.
The vast majority of Reform’s money came from climate deniers and fossil fuel interests, including Brexit mega-donor Jeremy Hosking and Terence Mourdant, co-owner of Bristol Port Company and a trustee of climate change denialists the Global Warming Foundation.
Reform also accepted £10,000 from Crispin Odey, two months after the disgraced financier was accused of sexual assault. Odey’s donation, originally filed by Reform as being made by an industry think-tank, only came to light following an investigation by DeSmog.
Reform has not always been reliant on Tice’s money. The Brexit party was formed in 2019 and registered donation income of more than £17 million that year. This remains an unprecedented sum for a new party in British politics.
Thai-based tech investor Christopher Harborne gave the Brexit party £13.7m - making him one of the biggest donors in British political history. Harborne is currently suing the Wall Street Journal over its reporting of his involvement in cryto-currency Tether.
Curiously, almost all of Harborne’s money was given after Farage announced that his party would not be standing in Tory seats - handing a huge pre-election boost to Boris Johnson. (Last year, Harborne gave £1 million to Johnson’s private office.)
The Brexit party also registered millions in small donations in 2019. At the time, the Electoral Commission warned that the party’s system of taking in donations through PayPal - which meant donors were not declared - left it open to a “high risk” of receiving impermissible donations, including foreign money.
Despite all the cash the Brexit party took in during 2019, by January 2020 Tice was loaning it money. He became party leader the following year.
Whatever happens to Reform’s electoral prospects, Tice is probably the clearest example of a politician using their own money to bootstrap a career in British politics. Is this how democracy should work?