Reform will stop Labour from taking union cash if crypto millions blocked, Farage says as donations row escalates
Nigel Farage has threatened to cut off Labour's union backers if Reform UK wins the next general election as a row over donations gets increasingly bitter.
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Mr Farage has escalated the row over his party's £72million donations from two crypto-billionaires - which communities secretary Angela Rayner could have to be handed back if proposed changes become law.
Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Farage said: “If anyone is giving money to do political bidding, it’s the trade unions”.
The Reform leader then said: “So I would just warn the Labour Party here and now: If you try and ban our donors, we in government would certainly ban funding from the trade unions.
“I don’t want to go down that route. But it is something we would be prepared to do.”
Read More: What are Farage and Reform being accused of?
Reports claim that Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo, who each gave Reform UK £36million on Friday, may be forced to undergo "enhanced checks" to establish if they are a UK resident.
Delo, who recently moved back to the UK from Hong Kong, and Harborne, a British-Thai citizen, said their sums would be used to "level the playing field" between Reform and the older parties.
The row has exploded over the weekend, as the Trades Union Congress attempts to carve out separate rules for donations than those being introduced in the Representation of the People Act.
The 11 affiliated unions to Labour want different rules for wealthy individuals than those handed to trade unions.
Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, told delegates on Monday: “Let no one tell you there is any similarity – any similarity – between care workers chipping in a few quid a year through their union and a party bought and paid for by billionaires.
“We need a proper conversation about how we clean up our politics that doesn’t push workers to the margins – but does stop the super-rich corrupting our politics.”
Speaking at the conference on Monday, Angela Rayner said: "How dare they try to compare money from a couple of crypto billionaires to union member stubs?
“The most highly regulated political funding we can have – it couldn’t be more different from a couple of offshore billionaires trying to buy our democracy.”
Labour’s Representation of People Bill aims to put a cap on donations from overseas sources and to make the law retrospective to the date of the Rycroft Review into party funding – March 25 this year.