Christopher Harborne, the Thailand-based crypto billionaire who has given more than £15m to Reform UK in the past twelve months and £5m personally to Nigel Farage, has registered to vote in Hampshire – a move that appears designed to help him continue funding British politics after planned reforms to the donations system come into force.
The Times first reported the registration, with a spokesperson for Harborne quoted saying he had decided to become “a registered voter in the UK.” The move follows Harborne’s statement in April that the government should not be able to stop him donating as he chose, adding: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
The difficulty for Harborne is that experts believe the planned cap will not apply to registration status – it will apply to where he actually lives. And he has been based in Thailand for more than five years.
What the new rules would mean
The planned changes to political donations are among 15 recommendations in a report by Sir Philip Rycroft, a former senior civil servant. The central measure is a cap of between £100,000 and £300,000 per year on donations from “British voters living abroad.” The legislation is expected to be applied retrospectively from March, subject to parliamentary approval, after communities secretary Steve Reed described the move as urgently needed to protect UK democracy.
Crucially, the definition of “living abroad” is expected to be determined by whether someone is based in the UK – not simply whether they are registered to vote. Decisions on individual cases would fall to local electoral officials, who assess whether a voter is “normally resident” in the UK for the purposes of their address on the register. Harborne, who goes by the Thai name Chakrit Sakunkrit in Thailand, has been based there for over five years.
It is understood that registering to vote in Hampshire would be unlikely to get Harborne around the cap on its own. If he wanted to satisfy the residency test, he would need to return to live in the UK – which would make him liable for UK tax on his fortune, estimated at more than £18bn. Rycroft’s report addressed this tension directly, writing: “Though many individuals’ decisions to move abroad are not financially motivated, it remains the case that wealthy individuals who have chosen to live abroad in order to have their wealth taxed abroad are nevertheless currently entitled to make unlimited donations to UK political parties. Despite choosing to minimise their contribution to the UK exchequer, these individuals have the opportunity to make potentially gamechanging donations into British politics.”
The scale of the donations
Harborne has become the most consequential individual funder of right-wing politics in British history. He has given more than £15m to Reform UK in the past year alone and is the party’s largest donor by a considerable distance. The £5m personal gift to Farage – given shortly before Farage announced his return to frontline politics and stood for parliament in Clacton – was undisclosed to parliamentary authorities. Weeks after receiving the gift, Farage bought a £1.4m property in cash.
The reforms would also block donations made in cryptocurrency – a significant provision given that Harborne’s fortune derives primarily from his stake in Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin. Harborne has previously opposed restrictions on stablecoins, and the Parliamentary Standards investigation into Farage sits alongside an FCA referral examining whether Farage’s public advocacy for Tether – conducted while receiving millions from its major shareholder – constituted an undisclosed financial promotion.
The Johnson connection
The question of Harborne’s political relationships extends beyond Farage. A Nerve investigation published this week found that Harborne appears to have provided his $50m private jet to Boris Johnson for a January 2023 Ukraine trip that was never declared to parliament – at a time when Harborne was the largest individual investor in QinetiQ, Britain’s leading military technology company, which was winning MoD contracts connected to the Ukraine conflict. Former Reform deputy leader Ben Habib has separately alleged that Harborne paid both Farage and Johnson £1m each in a 2019 election deal, an allegation Harborne has contested through his lawyers at Schillings.
The pattern of Harborne’s political spending – giving to the Brexit Party, then the Conservatives, then Reform UK, while providing personal gifts to senior politicians across that trajectory – is what has led Labour MP Clive Lewis to call for a national security investigation into the full scope of his relationships with British political figures.
What happens next
The legislation capping overseas donations has not yet passed parliament. Until it does, Harborne remains legally entitled to continue donating to Reform at current levels. The retrospective application from March – if approved – would affect donations made after that date. Whether it would capture any of the historic giving is a separate question.
For Harborne, the choice is stark: accept a cap of £100,000-£300,000 per year, return to the UK to maintain residency and face UK taxation on his £18bn fortune, or find another route to continue funding British politics. The parliamentary standards probe into the undisclosed £5m gift, the FCA referral, the national security questions raised by the Nerve investigation and the Habib litigation are all running simultaneously. Registering to vote in Hampshire is unlikely to resolve any of them.
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