Caps on foreign funding and crypto donations banned in huge setback for Reform

PM Keir Starmer has introduced landmark legislation that will significantly change how politics operates in the UK. While MPs must still approve it, Cabinet Minister Steve Reed has confirmed that the government will apply it retrospectively. Bad news for Farage and Reform.

Justifying this move to backdate this policy, Reed cited the urgent need to protect the country’s democracy.

The proposed changes follow an independent review by Sir Philip Rycroft which explored the influence of political donations on British political parties. Rycroft’s review follows significant concerns surrounding foreign influence on domestic politics. Naming Iran, Russia, China and the US, the review put forward a further 15 recommendations to the Starmer government.

Nevertheless, Israel should also be included, given the scale of pro-Israel donations to the Labour Party ahead of the 2024 General Election.

It seems some foreign influence continues to operate largely out of sight in British politics.

In today's London Influence:

😱 There's more in the Rycroft review than the Farage-baiting crypto donation ban.
📈 Some new stats suggest we aren't very good at policing election bad actors.
💼 We have loads of job moves for you to feast on.

Dig in 👇https://t.co/2vMKYlfFCR

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) March 26, 2026

Back to the drawing board for Farage

This news comes as little surprise. A month ago, the Guardian reported that a national security committee warned UK elections were “dangerously exposed” to foreign money and recommended implementing stronger safeguards to counter the risk.

Subsequently, this legislation appears to seek to do just that. Limiting donations from Brits abroad to £100,000 and banning cryptocurrency donations entirely will drastically impact the level of donations political parties can obtain.

It also works to reduce the unwelcome and disproportionate influence that super-rich donors have on policy decisions made by elected leaders. Nevertheless, these proposed changes are likely to impact some more than others. Reform UK has received £12m just in the last year from Christopher Harborne, an overseas investor based in Thailand.

When this legislation kicks in, Harborne’s donations will stop filling Reform UK’s coffers, and the crypto ban will hit Farage and his team — since they’re the only party openly taking cryptocurrency.

Reform deputy leader Richard Tice remains defiant, stating to GB News:

The reality is everything they’re trying to do is to stop the incredible progress of Reform, and cryptocurrencies are a perfectly legitimate way of investing, of earning within the law.

Once again, they’re putting a cap on donations from overseas electors, stopping crypto donations. We’ve got nothing to hide. It’s quite clear they’re absolutely petrified, terrified of the progress of Reform.

This X post highlights how big an impact these caps and bans will be on Reform’s super-privileged donations:

3️⃣ 🇬🇧 UK BANS CRYPTO POLITICAL DONATIONS — NIGEL FARAGE IN THE CROSSHAIRS
The UK just announced it will ban cryptocurrency donations to political parties and cap overseas donations at £100K/year.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party accepted Bitcoin donations and sourced two-thirds of…

— Joshua (@JoshOnTheMoney) March 26, 2026

‘The Sanctuary’ for the far-right

A recent investigation carried out by HOPE Not Hate and the Guardian unearthed troubling details surrounding the Sanctuary in London. Set up by British crypto billionaire Ben Delo, it offers financial support, free meeting rooms, podcast spaces and catered events to ‘hardline activists’. The investigation describes the set-up as a:

start-up accelerator for political initiatives, some of which are far right, like Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain and the race science magazine Aporia.

Delo is reported to be ‘anti-woke,’ believing it to be an “existential threat to Western civilisation”. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but most see the super-rich as the ultimate threat to peace and stability.

Something this new legislation from Starmer’s government reaffirms.

The Sanctuary appears to go to great lengths to avoid public attention. For instance, it requires organisations that use its spaces not to mention it online. Moreover, it has hosted high-profile figures, including far-right MP Rupert Lowe. Despite this, however, the media had not reported on it until now.

HOPE not hate and the Guardian draw attention to an ‘ecosystem’ purposed to support more extreme right-wing views in British politics, with Lowe being one of their biggest beneficiaries. Since his very public fallout with Nigel Farage, Lowe has used the Sanctuary as the base for his pressure group, Restore Britain, which he has now launched as a political party.

Speaking to the influence of Delo on the kind of politics that will come out of the Sanctuary, the investigation wrote:

We can reveal that much of Restore Britain’s social media content is produced directly inside The Sanctuary. In November 2025, Lowe used the offices to promote a policy paper on implementing mass deportations. Inspired by the USA’s “Operation Wetback” of the 1950s, Lowe’s paper called for “forced removals and subtler tactics for making residence in Britain unliveable for those with no right to be here”. Lowe has been holding his “rape gang inquiry” at The Sanctuary.

Restore Britain’s website demands immigrants be detained in “deliberately austere” camps. Lowe has elsewhere called for a ban on kosher and halal meat, which would make life for many British Jews and Muslims impossible.

The list of privileged, self-interested and ego-driven pundits doesn’t end there; the guest list includes race scientists and anti-abortion agitators, according to the in-depth investigation.

The names of former prime minister Boris Johnson and Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch are in there, having filmed episodes of Triggernometry, an anti-woke podcast, in The Sanctuary. The podcast, which has 1.7 million subscribers, uses Delo’s facilities free of charge.

The GB News presenter Andrew Doyle and the Peep Show actress Sophie Winkleman have also signed the book, as have the far-right activists Charlie Downes and Connor Tomlinson.

It’s about bloody time!

Public concern around donations from the super-rich to political parties has grown rapidly over recent years. This comes as the sheer scale of donations have surpassed levels seen in previous years, marking an escalation in the influence of billionaires. For instance, Quadrature Capital made the biggest political donation ever received by the Labour Party after donating £4m to Starmer’s campaign.

Funnily enough, the government then decided to scale back its commitment to a new green economic plan which ended up directly benefiting Quadrature. This followed Starmer’s choice to divert those funds to an increase in defence spending of £3.5bn which coincidentally increased the asset value of the hedge fund.

Therefore, this move by the government is crucial and necessary to safeguard our democracy. Their unparalleled ability to secure advantageous policies benefitting the richest in society will deepen inequality and hurt the majority of hard-working British people.

However, Starmer must go further than simply trying to undercut Reform’s advantage — he must also ban pro-Israel donations.

Featured image via the Canary