The latest Electoral Commission run-down of UK political donors shows one individual in an especially generous mood. Back in August, one Christopher Harborne gave the Reform party £9m, a staggering amount that dwarfed all other donations. Even the billionaire property developer and Reform treasurer Nick Candy could only muster a measly £100,000 in the same month.
Always keen to stay close to political power, back in 2022, Harborne gave Boris Johnson’s private office a £1m donation, the largest ever made to an individual politician. But now it seems he is going all in with Reform, having gifted them a total of over £20m since 2019. That makes him the main backer of a party that, in its own words, promises to bring down the “out of touch political class who have turned their backs on our country”.
It’s strange that Harborne should feel so drawn to a party that’s against people who’ve “turned their backs” on Britain, especially as he, er, lives in Thailand. And as for being “out of touch”, it turns out that salt-of-the-earth Harborne made his money out of, among other things, private jets and crypto. Having moved out to Thailand in 2019, he currently has Thai citizenship under the name of Chakrit Sakunkrit.
But then the Reform party’s own leadership seem to have a strange understanding of what “turning your back” on Britain actually means. Even the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, saw nothing wrong with moving to Dubai, which is just a little over 7,000kms from his Skegness constituency. Presumably the people in the Indulgence Cafe on Skegness high street regard this as being completely “in touch”.
What is it about the new hard-right – they love Britain so much but don’t even want to live here?
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