Reform May Return Some Of 72 M Crypto Profit

Reform UK could be forced to hand back some of the £72 million the party has received from two crypto billionaires, it has emerged.

Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne have given the party £36m each in the past 48 hours.

Party leader Nigel Farage said he was “humbled and honoured” that the pair had made the donations.

But housing secretary Angela Rayner has suggested that a new law capping donations form foreign donors at £100,000 could see Reform having to return some of the pair’s money.

The proposed reforms are based on the recommendations of a review by former civil servant Philip Rycroft.

Although Delo is understood to have returned from Hong Kong to live in the UK earlier this year, Harborne is still based in Thailand.

Rayner told BBC1’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that the new law would be “retrospective”, meaning it would cover donations fro foreign donors dating back to March.

That could see Reform forced to hand back almost all of Harborne’s £36m.

Rayner said: “With the retrospective action, anyone that’s received donations that don’t comply with what was in the Rycroft review … would have 60 days to return that money.”

But Robert Jenrick, Reform’s economic spokesman, dismissed Rayner’s remarks.

He said: “These two donations are entirely in line with the law as it is, and as far as we know, the law as it’s going to be in the future.”

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