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Reform receives second £36m donation in two days as crypto investor matches record

Maia Davies
News imageGeorge Cracknell Wright/LNP Christopher Harborne arrives at the Victoria and Albert Museum during the Conservative Party Summer Party in 2022. He is a middle aged man with short grey hair in a suit and tieGeorge Cracknell Wright/LNP
Christopher Harborne called the donation a "philanthropic gift to our country"

Reform UK has received a second £36m donation in as many days, as cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne says he has matched a record-breaking donation announced late on Friday.

Harborne wrote in the Telegraph that his "competitive spirit" had inspired him to equal Ben Delo's donation - the largest ever given to a UK political party.

The Thailand-based entrepreneur said he expected "nothing personally" in return aside from "a party that is ready for government".

The £72m from these two donations is more than the total received by all UK political parties last year.

Harborne has already donated millions to Reform and its leader Nigel Farage.

Farage is currently under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner over whether he should have declared a £5m cash gift from Harborne ahead of the 2024 election.

Farage has argued that he was under no obligation to register the "purely private" gift, as it was unrelated to his parliamentary or political activities.