More than half (57 percent) of the donations to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK since the 2024 general election have been from individuals featured in a major tax haven database, DeSmog can report.

These 12 donors, collectively behind £16.8 million in donations to the party since July 2024, represent a significant proportion of the total £29.2 million received by Reform over the period. 

These figures further highlight Reform’s reliance on billionaire donors linked to overseas entities, and put into perspective the party’s tax policies, which include offering tax breaks to rich overseas residents.

Farage has triggered a by-election in his Clacton constituency following revelations that he received undeclared gifts from several donors, including £5 million from Reform’s biggest backer Christopher Harborne, prior to the 2024 general election. 

As revealed by DeSmog, Farage has also received more than £2 million in earnings and gifts since becoming the MP for Clacton in July 2024 – with almost £700,000 coming from overseas sources.

The Offshore Leaks Database, compiled by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), lists information about more than 810,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts.

Inclusion in the database is not an indication of wrongdoing, and offshore entities can be used for other legitimate purposes other than minimising tax bills. 

Harborne, who has donated £25.2 million to Reform since 2019, is one of those featured. 

Harborne’s £5 million gift to Farage, given before he stood as an MP and reclaimed his role as Reform leader, is currently the subject of an investigation by Parliament’s standards watchdog, which has also been urged to probe whether Farage lobbied the Bank of England to drop a cryptocurrency scheme that could prove costly to Harborne.

Previously a Conservative donor and domiciled in Thailand, Harborne has a stake in cryptocurrency firm Tether, owned by iFinex, which is based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) – an offshore tax haven. 

According to the Offshore Leaks database, one iteration of Harborne’s company, AML Global – which supplies aviation and maritime fuel to a distribution network that includes “main and regional oil companies” – is based in the BVI. Harborne also features as a shareholder of a BVI-based entity called Sherriff Global, and as an intermediary of five BVI-based companies.

Recent reporting indicates that Harborne has now registered to vote in the UK, after the government announced a crackdown on overseas donations.

Nick Candy, Reform’s treasurer, has previously been found to own property through offshore vehicles based in Guernsey. A Panama Papers leak in 2016 – which exposed a vast web of secretive offshore tax schemes involving prominent figures – indicated that he and his brother, Christian, may have paid almost no tax on a land deal by selling the plot through offshore companies. 

A spokesman for the Candy brothers told The Guardian: “It is a matter of public record that Christian Candy established the Guernsey-based company CPC Group Limited in 2004. The acquisition you refer to was therefore subject to the Guernsey tax regime and all appropriate taxes have been paid.”

Candy – who has donated £990,000 to Reform since 2025 – was recently reported to have met with several figures subject to human rights sanctions during a visit to Nicaragua.

Reform backer Mohamed Amersi, formerly a Conservative donor, is also listed in the database via his personal foundation, as is Lord Anthony Bamford, whose construction conglomerate JCB gave £200,000 to Reform in November 2025. The Bamford family has contributed large sums of money to the Conservative Party, but in recent years has begun to donate substantially to Farage’s operation.

Lord Bamford was found as part of the Panama Papers leak to have closed down a company registered in the British Virgin Islands months before joining the House of Lords in 2013. His name is also linked to JCB Export Sales, registered in Jersey, as part of the Paradise Papers release.

Lady Claudia Harmsworth, Viscountess Rothermere, makes appearances in the leaks in connection with her husband’s complex web of offshore entities. The wife of media mogul Lord Rothermere – who owns the Daily Mail, iPaper, and Metro – she donated £50,000 to Reform in 2025. 

Other donors to the party which make an appearance in the leaks include Hepburn Biocare Ltd (owned by Margaret Hepburn), Johan Christofferson, and Girgi Azar, the chair and CEO of UK Sotheby’s International Realty, which donated £100,000 to Reform in August 2025.

All the named donors have been approached for comment.

Rycroft and Reform

Farage has previously said that he wants to win back high net worth individuals to the UK through a £250,000 “Britannia Card” that would allow wealthy foreigners to buy a 10-year residency permit and enter a special tax regime. Labour has called the policy a “billionaires bonanza” and tax experts have estimated it would cost the UK £35 billion over five years in lost revenue. 

The individuals included in the Offshore Leaks database do not represent the true extent of Reform’s courtship by hyper-wealthy individuals with interests in favourable tax jurisdictions. New analysis from DeSmog finds that, of the roughly £46 million donated to the party since its inception, £35.5 million (77 percent) comes from those who either reside in, or conduct some of their business through, tax havens. 

The party has also received vast sums of money from corporate interests. As revealed by DeSmog, Reform has accepted £24 million from oil and gas interests while denying basic climate science and advocating for the dramatic expansion of fossil fuel production.

However, pressure has been mounting for the government to limit the ability of donors to give vast sums of money to political parties.

In March, the Labour government released the Rycroft Review – authored by former Foreign Office permanent secretary Philip Rycroft – which assessed the level of foreign financial interference in UK politics.

In response, the government immediately imposed a moratorium on cryptocurrency donations to political parties, and capped donations from overseas sources to £100,000 a year, potentially wiping out Reform’s preferred avenues of funding. 

However, campaigners are pushing for the government to extend its reforms to political finance rules – currently outlined in the Representation of the People Bill – to include capping donations from all sources, including those based in the UK.

“The government is right to act quickly on Rycroft’s recommendations,” said Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK. “The decision to apply these changes immediately shows ministers understand the urgency of the threat. But these are the partial fixes. The big question – whether to cap donations from all donors, not just those living abroad – remains unanswered.”

He added: “Big money from a UK-based mega-donor poses the same risk to the integrity of our politics as from one based overseas. Ministers should cap donations from all donors, not just those living abroad.”

This was echoed by Dr Jess Garland, director of research and policy at the Electoral Reform Society, who said: “The government must go further and also bring in a cap on how much all donors can give to a party, not just those based abroad. This is widely supported by the public and would help prevent our politics from being swamped with massive donations, which now frequently reach into the multiple millions.”

Olly Buston, director of the Clean Up Westminster campaign, added: “Why would we seek to stop a mega donor from Thailand dominating British politics but not a mega donor from Tunbridge Wells?”

Reform was approached for comment.