Reform UK's candidate for the London mayoral election, Laila Cunningham, struggled to answer questions about party leader Nigel Farage's undeclared £5m gift during an appearance on LBC. The interview came as the parliamentary standards watchdog confirmed on Friday that it has reopened its investigation into whether Farage should have declared the sum, which he received from Thai-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne months before becoming an MP.
During the LBC interview, host Ben Kentish pressed Cunningham on the conflicting explanations Farage has given for the money. After she repeated Farage's claim that the £5m was for private security, Kentish noted that Farage had also described it as a reward for his Brexit campaigning. Cunningham argued both explanations could be true, but when asked what the money was actually spent on, she said she had "no idea."
Kentish challenged her: "Isn't it strange to take a donation to make yourself safer and not spend it on making yourself safer?" Cunningham replied: "I don't know what he spent it on, that I can't comment on." When pressed on why Farage's own colleagues were unaware of the details, she said she believed it was "really none of people's business" how Farage spends his private money.
The investigation into Farage, who has never clarified how the £5m was spent, was reopened after he regained his parliamentary seat. Farage secured his return to parliament earlier this month after defeating a candidate in Clacton, where he had triggered a by-election amid heightened scrutiny of his finances.
The renewed scrutiny comes alongside new analysis by The Independent of Electoral Commission data, which found that Reform UK has received £20 million in donations from cryptocurrency investors since the 2024 general election. The analysis shows that 60% of the party's funding comes from wealthy individuals linked to digital currency.
The largest donor identified is Christopher Harborne, whose donations total £15 million. Other significant contributors include Ben Peter Delo, founder of cryptocurrency trading platform Bitmex, who gave two £2m payments this year; Maria Rost, wife of US crypto investor John Rost, who made nine payments worth £125,000; London-based bitcoin investor Simon William Smith, who donated £116,000 before the election; and Oscar Townsley, former head of Bitcoin derivatives firm A1X, who gave £30,000 last year.
The analysis also found that the Conservative Party received £82,250 from crypto investor and hedge fund manager Alan Eldad Howard. No crypto donations were identified for Labour, the Liberal Democrats, or the Green Party.
A Reform UK spokesman told HuffPost UK: "Reform takes pride in its stringent vetting of donations and always ensures that the Electoral Commission guidelines on donations, as set out in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, are strictly followed, as has been the case with all donations."
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson criticised the findings, saying Farage "secretly took a £5m gift from a Thai-based crypto billionaire and then promised to cut taxes for the crypto industry." She also pointed to "donations from a convicted fraudster and police probes into Reform's donors and finances."