Invest1 publisher3 min readPublished
Delo prepays 36 months of Reform UK donations against a cap Labour is still weighing
Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne have given Reform UK 72 million pounds in two days, paid up front against a donation cap the government has only begun to weigh. Both cheques were written in sterling.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Ben Delo, the BitMEX co-founder, gave Reform UK 36 million pounds on Friday and announced it in the Telegraph, making it the largest single donation ever made to a British political party.
- The combined 72 million pounds exceeds the roughly 69 million that all British parties took in donations across the whole of last year.
- Delo describes his gift as the equivalent of 1 million pounds a month until the latest date Labour could call an election in 2029, paid up front in case the government caps large donations.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- decision Any cap Labour passes now arrives too late for these two cheques. The value of any bill to the government depends on how much large-donor money is still unpaid on the day it passes.
- constraint Anyone drafting limits for this money has to write them around residence and size: rules aimed at crypto donations do not touch a sterling gift from a crypto fortune.
- exposure Delo can give without limit while he counts as UK-based and 100,000 pounds if he does not, so Reform's largest income line turns on one donor's residency status.
- capability Reform can commit to three years of fixed campaign payroll without going back to donors, because the cash for it is already in the account.
Thirty-six million pounds paid at the rate of 1 million a month is 36 payments, which dates Delo's cheque to roughly the latest point at which Labour could call an election in 2029 [1] [3]. He handed it over in one go because a cap, if it passes, would reach only money not yet given [3]. At the moment a UK-based donor faces no limit at all [5].
Residence is what decides that. Labour has capped gifts from Britons living overseas at 100,000 pounds and plans the same for recent returnees [6]. Delo was born in Sheffield, has been in Hong Kong, and says he will return [7]. Measured against the overseas ceiling, Friday's donation is 360 times the maximum [3]. Since March a donor has also needed 12 months on the electoral register before giving more than 100,000 pounds in a year [8].
Harborne, the Thailand-based Tether investor, matched the sum on Saturday, having already given Reform 15 million since the last election [9]. His "competitive spirit" prompted it, he wrote in the Telegraph, adding that he expected "nothing, personally" [10]. That takes his declared giving to Reform to 51 million [6].
The money is sterling. Neither man's latest donation nor any of their previous ones were made in crypto, and Britain banned crypto political donations in March [11] [12]. Delo co-founded BitMEX and Harborne invested in Tether [1] [9], but a sterling cheque sits outside that ban.
In my view the prepayment matters more than the total. Delo has moved the regulatory risk off the party and onto himself: if a cap arrives in 2027, the money is banked and three years of staff are funded, and if no cap ever arrives, he has given up the ability to stop paying and got nothing for it. The Metropolitan Police opened an inquiry on Tuesday into allegations from Channel 4 footage of two senior aides discussing ways around the ban on foreign money, folding it into an existing probe into payments received before the last election, and a Reform spokesman said the party "denies any wrongdoing and will fully cooperate" [15] [16]. Both men's gifts fall outside that investigation [17].
Both donors have drawn official attention before. Donald Trump pardoned Delo in 2025, three years after he pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering failures at BitMEX [18]. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is weighing whether Farage should have declared a 5 million pound personal gift from Harborne [19].
Reform said the money would hire "the brightest and best minds to work on policy" and 400 campaign managers, one per target seat, and a spokesman said the party is "now on election footing" [13] [14]. Spread across 400 seats, 72 million is 180,000 a seat before a single policy hire [4], and over the 36 months Delo has funded it is 2 million a month [7]. Decrypt's account sets the sum against fundraising: 72 million is about 4 percent more than the roughly 69 million every British party took in donations last year [2] [20].
What to watch
- Whether any donation cap Labour legislates applies to money already banked or only to gifts still to come.
- Whether the Metropolitan Police inquiry widens from pre-election payments to donations declared since.
- How quickly Reform puts campaign managers into the 400 target seats the money is meant to cover.