Will the £72m of donations to Reform UK be allowed?

Reform UK announced over the weekend the two biggest single political donations in British history: £36m from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and a further £36m from another crypto billionaire, Ben Delo.

However, by Monday experts were questioning whether the donations would be legal, especially under the elections bill that the government is bringing through parliament and which will apply retrospectively.

Are the donations allowable? Here are the key questions which must be answered.

Are Delo and Harborne registered as UK-based voters?

Under current law, anyone can donate to a political party as long as they are a British citizen who is registered to vote in the UK.

However, under the Representation of the People Act donors who are registered as overseas voters will be subject to a cap of £100,000 a year.

The £100,000 cap will also apply for at least a full calendar year – from January to December – after they return to the UK. So someone returning to the country in the summer would have to wait for about 18 months before they can donate more than £100,000.

Crucially for Harborne and Delo, this rule will apply retrospectively from 25 March. So the question for both will be, were they registered as UK-based voters before that date?

If not they will not be allowed to donate more than £100,000 each in a single 12-month period, making these donations impermissible.

Sources have told the Guardian that Delo has been registered as a UK-based voter for years, but that is less clear where Harborne is concerned.

A report by Channel 4 News last month said its reporters had seen records suggesting he had only registered as a domestic voter in June, in which case he would be subject to the cap until January 2027, and his donation would not be legal.

Reform has refused to say when exactly both men registered as resident in the UK.

Should Delo and Harborne be classified as domestic voters?

Even if both men are registered as UK-based voters, this status can be challenged.

To get on to the electoral roll as a domestic voter, a person only has to write to the local authority and sign a declaration saying the address at which they are registering is their “permanent home address”.

Electoral administrators routinely check the person’s date of birth and their national insurance number, but do not do so for their connections to the address at which they are registering.

However, if another local voter believes they might be lying about where they live, they can challenge the registration.

Bob Posner, a former head of the Electoral Commission, said: “Just because someone is on the electoral register, does not mean they are rightfully so.”

If a case were to come to court, there are no hard tests as to what qualifies someone to count as a domestic voter, but various elements can be taken into account, including the amount of time spent there and where a person’s family lives.

For Delo and Harborne, there are questions over whether they really count the UK as home.

An interview with Delo last year said: “He lives in the same modest flat in Hong Kong he rented 12 years ago.” The billionaire himself meanwhile wrote in the Telegraph in April: “I will move back to Britain early so I can contribute more to Reform’s budget.”

As for Harborne, a recent report by Channel 4 News found that several residents of the tiny village in which he is now registered said they had never seen him.

What is Reform saying?

This weekend Reform sources said they were very confident the donations would be permissible.

“We are 100% confident both are legal and won’t ever have to be handed back,” a spokesperson said, suggesting both men would meet the criteria on residency even within the rules of the new bill.

By Monday that position appeared to be shifting, with Nigel Farage complaining about the fact that the bill would apply retrospectively.

“Both these donations are 100% compliant with the law today, of that there is no question whatsoever,” the Reform UK leader told the BBC.

But when asked whether Delo and Harborne were UK residents as of 25 March, he added: “I’m not going to go into their particular details. All I’m going to say is, with the law of the land as it stands, they are both compliant.

“Now, there is talk, and Angela Rayner was talking about this yesterday, there is talk of them retrospectively declaring donations illegally. Well, that simply cannot be.”

Could the law be toughened further?

Ministers are now considering rewriting parts of the bill to make it clearer what should be counted towards UK residency.

If it comes into line with the test for income tax as some experts have advocated, that could set a minimum number of days which Delo and Harborne would have had to have spent in the UK in the preceding year to qualify as UK residents. Importantly, this could set a standard that a voter is not allowed to donate unless they also pay income tax as a UK resident.

However, it remains unclear exactly what these tests would be, and whether Harborne or Delo would meet them.

What happens if the donations are ruled illegal?

If, when the elections bill becomes law, it renders either or both of the Delo and Harborne donations impermissible, the money will have to be handed back. Even if Reform has spent a large chunk of it, it would still need to pay the full amount.

More seriously for the individuals themselves, if they are found to have lied to electoral administrators in their declarations, they could be held criminally liable.

“Providing false information to register to vote is a police matter,” said Laura Lock, the deputy chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, on Monday.

“Every registration makes it clear it is an offence to knowingly provide false information when making an application. It is a crime that can lead to an unlimited fine or up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.”

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