Up next in 10
00:00 Lewis Goodall lays out the facts on the 'biggest donation in British political history'. 09:58 Investigative reporter Tom Burgis lifts the lid on Farage's secretive benefactor. Christopher Harborne, a British businessman who handed Reform the biggest single donation in history to a political party from a living person, gave Mr Farage a seven-figure sum to fund his security in 2024, before he re-entered politics. “This money was given to me so that I would be safe and secure for the rest of my life,” Mr Farage told the Telegraph. “I have tried and failed in the past to get security funded by the Home Office and I don’t think the state will ever help me. “I’m very much on my own and will be for the rest of my life, and I have to face up to that grim reality. “Christopher is an ardent supporter who is deeply concerned for my safety.” The party’s war chest was bolstered by a £9 million donation from Mr Harborne, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency investor, last August, and he has given millions more since and previously. Mr Harborne is understood to have separately given Mr Farage a gift of around £5 million, according to The Telegraph, meaning it was not taxed or declared as it did not count as a political donation. Mr Farage said it followed his unsuccessful attempt to secure Home Office-funded security in 2019 and after Mr Harborne became concerned about his level of protection when a milkshake was thrown at him. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #lewisgoodall #ukpolitics #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
Cast your mind back to those early days in the summer of 2024 of Starmer's government
0:05
I think it's fair to say that he did not enjoy a honeymoon
0:09
If he did, it was basically a dodgy wet weekend in Bognor. No offence to Bognor
0:14
And he ended up in a situation where very quickly he was in the mire
0:19
stuck in the quicksand of what was called a scandal. I said at the time I didn't think it was much of a scandal
0:24
I think it was a lot of hypocrisy on all sides in politics and the media. but of course you'll remember it as Freebiegate
0:30
Huge, huge attention being paid into whether the Prime Minister had received
0:34
a free pair of glasses from party donor Lord Ali or he'd received, got some new suits and a tie
0:39
Victoria Starmer had got a few new frocks and then we had a situation where the Chancellor of the Exchequer was being absolutely lacerated
0:45
over accepting some corporate hospitality to see a Sabrina Carpenter tour or ticket
0:50
or whatever it was, concert. And on and on and on it went and we had endless hand-wringing from journalists in particular
0:56
journalists who, in my experience, are no stranger to a little bit of corporate hospitality on occasion
1:02
deciding to criticise politicians for accepting what were, in the grand scheme of things, pretty minor free gifts
1:08
Angered a lot of people, and some people, I think, perfectly legitimately, and there were some legitimate questions to ask about it, but it went on and on and on
1:16
In numerical terms, of course, the value of these gifts was very low, almost nugatory in some cases
1:23
And yet over the course of the last week, we've seen a gift
1:28
a gift with relation to a party political leader of an enormous amount
1:33
five million pounds previously undisclosed. And yet it has barely caused a ripple in the pages of the national media
1:41
I'm referring, of course, to the five million pounds that Nigel Farage
1:46
we now know thanks to The Guardian, accepted just before he was elected to parliament in 2024
1:52
from a Thailand-based UK citizen, but Thailand-based crypto billionaire. And that isn't all because it is, of course
2:01
this same man who last year gave reform the biggest donation in British political history
2:10
in the summer of 2025 to the tune of £9 million. pounds. And then he decided to top it off with a further three million pounds in the final quarter
2:22
of 2025. To put that into context, and so that's 12 million pounds, put that into context
2:30
In 2025, according to the Electoral Commission, the total amounts donated to every single political
2:37
party in the country, from the biggest political party, the Conservative, Labour Party, and so on
2:42
right down to the kind of, you know, little Sodbury Residence Association party
2:48
right down and everything in between, you had about £65 million of donations being given and donated
2:56
That means £12 million went to one party, a huge amount of that, a huge proportion of that
3:04
went to one party from one man. We have never seen anything like it before
3:11
and he wasn't alone because we've also seen in that time and you bear in mind just thinking about
3:18
the figures of that 12 million means that reform were given about a fifth of all the money donated
3:25
to all the political parties in britain in 2025 from one man and bear in mind that when you go
3:32
down the list for the reform donations he's got that 12 million donate 9 million donation then
3:37
he's got that 3 million donation. The next lot of donations down are about 12 times smaller
3:44
about a quarter of a million here, a quarter of a million there. Still big money from big donors
3:48
but of a different league, a different order of magnitude by comparison to the money that this man
3:55
Christopher Harbourn, has given, as I say, a Thailand-based crypto billionaire. Very mysterious
4:00
character. Harbourn himself is a major shareholder in a company called Tether. Now, Tether is
4:07
registered in the Central American dictatorship of El Salvador. Now, with a tiny sadaf, Tether
4:14
has been described as the most profitable company per employee in history. It has issued some
4:22
$184 billion in digital cash known as stablecoins. Now here coincidentally enough remarkably enough is Nigel Farage talking on this very station to my colleague Nick Ferrari some time ago What does he happen to mention He mentions that company Tether Listen to this
4:41
Tether is a stablecoin. Stablecoins are the way which money goes from conventional currencies through into cryptocurrencies and back again
4:50
Tether is about to be valued as a $500 billion company. You know, stablecoins, crypto, this world is enormous
4:59
and I've been urging for years that London should embrace it. We should become a global trading centre for this stuff
5:06
under proper regulation and the governor of the Bank of England earlier this week indicated that nobody, no individual
5:12
should be allowed to have more than £10,000 worth of stable coins to which some of my friends have said
5:17
shall we just emigrate? So there's Nigel Farage waxing lyrical about the virtues of crypto, about Bitcoin and so on
5:26
A world that is still pretty shadowy, largely unregulated, still emerging, about which there are huge regulatory questions
5:34
to be put and posed to it. Now, we should say that both Mr Farage and Mr Harbourn
5:39
have made clear that the party donations and the personal gift, which Mr Farage is saying
5:46
is related to his security needs as an individual, a politician who has been targeted in the past
5:52
That's what he says the money is for. It is unconditional, they say, entirely unconditional
5:57
and has nothing to do with the fact that the Reform Party has perhaps the most favourable sets of policies towards crypto
6:06
They are the most pro-crypto party of any of the major parties
6:11
They say that it's completely unconditional. Nonetheless, we see the money and we follow the money and we do see that there's £12 million that have been donated
6:19
Previously, there had been money donated to the forerunner of the Reform Party, the Brexit Party as well
6:24
and of course we did not know until the Guardian reported it about this £5 million personal gift
6:29
Now the Tories say and Labour say that Nigel Farage has broken parliamentary rules
6:33
by refusing, by not disclosing it. He says it's a private matter
6:38
We do know, as I say, that Nigel Farage is an evangelist for crypto
6:42
So much so that we saw Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Tory Chancellor, for about 10 seconds
6:46
announcing last year that Nigel Farage had joined his crypto scheme. I'm the executive chairman of Stan
6:54
We all know that Bitcoin treasury companies are relatively new. The next stage of growth requires institutional credibility
7:02
What we're building at Stack is a model, a template for how these companies should evolve
7:07
And it's very important that we manage to build strategic partnerships and alliances to really push this journey forward
7:15
I'm delighted to announce the participation of Nigel Farage and Blockchain.com. Nigel Farage is a great political disruptor, but beyond all of that, he's someone who has championed Bitcoin over many years
7:30
And we're delighted to have him already. Blockchain.com has established itself at the center of the Bitcoin ecosystem, made trillions of dollars of transactions in its history
7:41
And we're delighted to welcome them on board, to have a senior frontline politician, but also someone who's passionate about financial services
7:48
and to have one of the great cryptocurrency companies together working with us is not only
7:53
a privilege but a huge endorsement for what we're trying to do from my own personal point of view
7:59
i think this is one of the most exciting developments in the financial architecture
8:03
of the united kingdom we are stacked btc that's quasi quateng uh announcing that farage had joined
8:10
his crypto company um or invested in it i should say um last year now again they're
8:16
Nigel Farage and Christopher Harbourn, they deny any impropriety, they say these gifts and these donations, they are entirely without condition
8:24
Nonetheless, my point to you, and the question I have, is that given we got so worked up about the gifts and corporate hospitality
8:31
which were trifling in their value by comparison to the amount of money
8:35
and gift that has been given by Mr Harbourn, the question is, why did that get so much attention
8:42
And this is not. I mean, you could not move on other broadcasters and on the newspapers
8:48
during those early days of the Labour government without, frankly, there were consistent suggestions that something improper had been done
8:54
by Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and others. And yet this story, as I say, we've got the biggest donation
8:59
in British political history, two donations worth £12 million, with more to come we told potentially by Christopher Harbourn It means that reform are unusually dependent on the funds from this one man And now we learn as well that Mr Farage accepted what we told was an unconditional gift
9:17
before he became a member of Parliament of £5 million, which Mr Farage says is for his security needs
9:23
Surely at the very least, particularly for a party that says it wants to
9:27
you know, be out there for the people's army, that they're a populist force, they're an insurgent force
9:33
they're a grassroots force, and yet we also learn they're highly dependent on the funds from a Thailand-based
9:38
doesn't even live in the UK, Thailand-based crypto billionaire. How does that make sense? How do you answer that
9:45
And how does it be, or how can it be, that we have such attention on something like FreebieGate
9:52
and yet in the media there is almost nothing on this? Should we be worried about big money in politics
9:58
Christopher Harbourn is a shadowy figure. Tell us about him. Well, his lawyers would say he's an intensely private man
10:06
He doesn't, until very recently, he'd never given interviews. He gave one to The Telegraph last week
10:11
But since then, we've heard, before that, we'd heard nothing. He lives in Thailand mostly
10:17
Unlike a lot of big donors, he doesn't sort of tell us what his motivations are
10:22
We know that he was born in the UK, 1962, near Sheffield
10:27
We know he had a kind of elite upbringing, private school, and then Cambridge and then a French prestigious business school
10:34
And then he makes his way to Thailand in the 1990s during the crisis there
10:39
He makes millions. And then he sets up on his own, making even more money
10:44
And what really turbocharges his wealth is cryptocurrency. I can put off a lot of readers and listeners
10:50
but essentially just new forms of digital cash issued by private individuals
10:55
and companies instead of by countries. And Christopher Harbourn, or Jack Krit, Sac and Krit, to give him his tie name, he is one of the barons of the cryptocurrency world
11:07
He's channeled a lot of his money into the Conservatives, yes, but on a massive scale, Nigel Farage and Reform UK
11:13
And Nigel Farage, as we've seen, has become a huge enthusiast for cryptocurrency
11:19
Yes, we should say that it is Nigel Farage and Mr. Harbourn say that there is no relationship whatsoever with Nigel Farage's party's policy or views on crypto and these enormous sums
11:32
But it is true to say, isn't it, that much like his great hero, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage has become something of an advocate for crypto, talking about the idea that Britain and the city of London is being left behind and almost certainly has the most pro-crypto policies of any of the major parties in Westminster
11:50
Yes, I think you're right to stress that, that they both say, listen, there is no connection between these millions and millions that have flowed from Christopher Harbourn to Farage's political project and his support for crypto
12:03
I did call up when I was working on my big Guardian profile of Harbourn
12:06
I did call up Gawain Towler, who's I'm sure you know and many of your listeners will know
12:12
He's been a sort of communications chief for a long time for Nigel Farage
12:15
And I said, well, where did Nigel Farage's enthusiasm for crypto begin
12:21
And Towler, he took it back to early 2019, those crucial months heading into those European elections that year when we still didn't know if leave or remain would triumph
12:31
And that's when Chris Harbourn arrived on the scene. The Brexit party was brand new
12:35
It was a shambles. In goes the beginning of Harbourn's donations, which will grow and grow and grow and grow into many millions
12:43
And yeah, there is no quid pro quo that anyone has ever identified of Harbourn saying to Farage
12:49
I'll give you this money if you back crypto. But you can see Farage becoming a huge crypto
12:54
enthusiast and specifically for a cryptocurrency called Tether, which is an enormous cryptocurrency
13:01
There are nearly $200 billion worth of these digital tokens around. And Farage lately has been
13:08
very energetically supporting this. He's been on LBC championing it. Now, the difficulty here
13:14
is that Tether, sure, it has legit uses, but it's also, by Tether's own admission
13:19
become very, very popular with those who use cryptocurrency for nefarious purposes. So
13:24
hacking, scamming, sanctions busting, even in support of the Russian war effort in Ukraine
13:30
Now, I'd say a pressing question for Farage is to say, well, what do you say about those nefarious
13:37
uses of Tether Given that Tether is owned by a handful of people it worth an enormous amount of money And one of the handful of people who own tether the company that issues this christian this uh cryptocurrency is his mega donor christopher harbour we also seen beyond just the donations which are enormous now
13:58
we've revealed this week by your colleague anna isaacs we've seen uh this extraordinary gift
14:04
apparently unconditional gift of some five million pounds that was made just before nigel farage
14:09
returned to Parliament, or it was elected to Parliament, I should say
14:14
not returned, but elected to Parliament in the 2024 general election. So that brings the total amount of money
14:20
that Mr Harbourn has given Nigel Farage and or his party to just, you know, £17 million or so
14:27
This is an extraordinary amount of money. We've never really seen anything
14:31
as far as I can recall, like it before in British politics. It's actually way more than that
14:35
because he started in 2019 when Reform UK was called the Brexit Party, right
14:41
It's the same thing. It's just got a different name now. So he gave millions and millions in 2019 to the Brexit Party
14:47
So I think if you tot it up and you add in that new 5 million, you're actually looking at more like 27 million
14:53
And Reform UK, that makes Reform UK uniquely dependent of political parties in the UK on a single benefactor, yes
15:01
And from your reporting and your very interesting piece in The Guardian
15:05
Did you get sense from reform people you were talking to about some disquiet about this dependency
15:14
I spoke to Emma Nicholson. She was a friend of Chris Harbourn's sister, late sister, and she's a conservative peer
15:21
She was worried. She thinks, to use her expression, she says, oh, Nigel is mad to accept his money
15:28
I think the bigger disquiet I heard was sort of twofold, really
15:32
One is on behalf of us all, you know, democracy works by ensuring that those we choose to rule us, their actions are in our interests, our collective interests
15:45
And in order to police conflict of interests, we have to understand the business interests and business activities of these big donors
15:52
And the more political funding is concentrated in the hands of a few people, the more there is the risk, of course, that our rulers will act in their interests rather than the collective interests
16:03
And I'll tell you the second question that comes up is a sort of simpler one, actually
16:07
Is there more? You know, as you said, and I as a brilliant colleague, broke the story of the five million gift to Nigel Farage in 2024
16:17
But is there more? I mean, there could have been other gifts
16:20
by both of the Parliament. And just very briefly, to come back on that, Tom, as well
16:26
I mean, we can have that debate and they've been asked about it and they say it's unrelated to his political work
16:32
and it was to guarantee his security and so on and so forth. But I do note and I do recall
16:37
that one of the early quote-unquote scandals of the Starmer government from which actually quite a bit of rot
16:42
started to set in in terms of public perception failure or unfairly was this question of freebie gate
16:47
and we were talking about donations of glasses or a couple of pair of suits
16:50
or some Sabrina Carpenter tickets for the Chancellor. That received enormous media attention
16:56
absolutely unrelenting for a period of weeks and even months. But I know that this £5 million
17:01
which is obviously by definition of an extraordinarily higher order of magnitude
17:06
than any of that, has got relatively little attention. Well, I mean, here we are talking about it on your popular show
17:13
That's a good sign, isn't it? But yes, I think it's legitimate to scrutinise all the parties
17:18
and all their potential conflict of interest. But it is also true that the sums involved here are massive
17:23
I wonder whether it has anything to do with this, I'd say, quite remarkable development of political parties
17:29
in this case, reform, making legal threats to journalists about their scrutiny of political funding
17:34
which does seem to me not a particularly healthy thing in a democracy. That was Tom Burgess, investigations correspondent at The Guardian, speaking to me on my Sunday show yesterday
17:42
I should say a spokesperson for reform has said that this £5 million was a personal, unconditional gift
17:48
and Nigel Farage's decision to stand as an MP was entirely unrelated to that gift
17:53
They said this gift was given when Nigel was retired from frontline politics
17:57
A while after the gift was given, Nigel confirmed he wouldn't stand at the next general election
18:02
He then reversed his decision to stand in June. Nonetheless, I think what is legitimate for us to consider
18:08
is why it is that this gift has received relatively little attention
18:13
by comparison to all of that Freebiegate stuff we had at the start of the Starmer government
18:17
and whether, frankly, there is just too much big money in politics, full stop
#news