Nigel Farage’s rebel Reform U.K. get together has attracted greater than a dozen donors from Britain’s as soon as dominant Conservative Social gathering, new knowledge reveals, underlining the risk the Tories face from a right-wing populist get together that fashions itself on President Trump’s MAGA motion.
In complete, Reform U.Okay. raised 4.75 million kilos ($6.1 million) final 12 months, a 3rd of which got here from former donors to the Conservatives, and a pointy improve from the lower than $200,000 that the get together raised in all of 2023.
The New York Occasions analyzed each donation that Reform U.Okay. reported to Britain’s marketing campaign finance watchdog in 2024, together with figures for the ultimate quarter of the 12 months that have been launched on Thursday, to get the primary main snapshot of who’s funding the get together.
The largest single donation within the final quarter got here from Roger Nagioff, a former Conservative donor, former Lehman Brothers banker and Monaco-based investor, who donated £100,000 in December. Different main donations in 2024 included a million kilos from an organization owned by Reform’s deputy chief, Richard Tice, and £500,000 from Fiona Cottrell.
The Conservative exodus started after Mr. Farage, an ideological ally of Mr. Trump, took over last year as Reform’s chief simply earlier than Britain’s July basic election. A longtime political disrupter and former commodities dealer who campaigned for Brexit, Mr. Farage has pledged to remake British conservatism, pushing the motion to the precise on a nationalistic platform that he frames as anti-establishment and anti-immigration.
Reform has surged in national polls, overtaking the Conservative Social gathering, and brought its first municipal seats. Though the governing Labour Social gathering doesn’t have to carry a basic election till 2029, Reform’s fund-raising success underlines Mr. Farage’s momentum and will assist his get together professionalize because it challenges the 2 foremost events at native elections in Could.
Whereas Mr. Farage has described help for Reform as a “revolt against the establishment,” 34 p.c of the get together’s new funders are former donors to the Conservatives, the centuries-old right-wing get together that held energy for 14 years in Britain earlier than final 12 months’s basic election.
Sam Energy, a political finance knowledgeable at Bristol College, mentioned that the most recent knowledge was a stark warning to the Conservative Social gathering, which is led by Kemi Badenoch.
“The motion of donors from the Conservative Social gathering to Reform already I believe shall be inflicting alarm bells in Conservative Social gathering HQ,” Mr. Energy mentioned.
“Cash talks, and what you’ll be able to see, if cash is transferring from one get together to a different, then that could be a main signal that the sands are shifting,” he mentioned. “Not simply by way of elections and the general public being Reform-curious, however that donors are more and more Reform curious, too.”
Different main donors bankrolling Reform in 2024 embrace billionaires and millionaires, people based mostly in abroad jurisdictions or with offshore investments, local weather change skeptics and people with investments in fossil fuels or different climate-polluting industries, The Occasions discovered.
Reform, which Mr. Farage initially created in 2019 as the Brexit Party, gained 14.3 p.c of the vote in final 12 months’s basic election. However in current weeks, it has reached round 25 percent in several polls, at occasions overtaking the Conservatives and Labour.
This can be a creating story. Please examine again for updates.
