In a major overhaul of British election laws, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced an immediate and retrospective ban on cryptocurrency donations to political parties.
During a heated session of Prime Minister’s Questions, Starmer also unveiled a £100,000 (€116,00) annual cap on donations from British citizens living abroad.
The measures follow the publication of the Rycroft Review, a supposed landmark report by former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft, which warned that “illicit finance” and “dark money” from hostile states like Russia and China pose a “stark threat” to the UK’s democratic integrity.
The move has sparked a political firestorm, with Reform UK accusing No. 10 of a targeted “assassination” of its funding model.
Nigel Farage’s populists, who currently lead both Labour and the Conservatives in multiple national opinion polls, is the only major political force to accept digital assets and has received approximately £12 million (€13.9 million) over the past year from Thailand-based billionaire Christopher Harborne.
While Communities Secretary Steve Reed insisted the measures were “absolutely not” designed to target any specific party, the retrospective nature of the ban—effective from today—means Reform could be forced to return millions in future commitments if the legislation passes as expected.
The government’s sudden legislative shift has been viewed by many insiders not as a random act of reform, but as a calculated preemptive strike against a looming “financial earthquake.”
The issue of Reform UK funds last came into sharp focus when rumours swirled about a major donation to party from U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk. Previously, long-term Farage sidekick Gawain Towler told europeanconservative.com that establishment institutions had changed—and would change—the rules to thwart Farage and his insurgent voters:
With any new rule now, they may as well explicitly target US billionaires born in South Africa—or go the whole hog with a law on donations that specifies Musk by name!
While the prospects of the Musk donation appear to have receded, government legal efforts, in all but name, to restrict Reform UK funding continue apace.
