{"id":746805,"date":"2026-08-23T03:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/746805\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T03:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:46:11","slug":"reforms-millions-from-crypto-interests-raise-doubts-about-nigel-farages-judgement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/746805\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform\u2019s millions from crypto interests raise doubts about Nigel Farage\u2019s judgement"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There is a respectable case to be made for cryptocurrencies. They offer a store of value that is independent of governments and central banks \u2013 which is partly why they are associated with economically liberal or libertarian politics. <\/p>\n

But there is, equally, a case to be made that cryptocurrencies are a form of Ponzi scheme; that they have no intrinsic value and therefore rely on a kind of confidence trick in order to work. <\/p>\n

There are other reasons for being sceptical about digital coins, including the anonymity they can confer, which makes them useful for money-laundering, concealing the proceeds of crime. <\/p>\n

Nothing of that kind is alleged in the case of the donors to Reform UK, but there are questions to be asked about a party that is so dependent on financial support from a small number of rich people who have made their money in this subsector of the financial world. <\/p>\n

The Independent\u2019s research has established that 60 per cent of the party\u2019s funding<\/a> has come from such people since the general election. The most generous donor is Christopher Harborne, the Thailand-based entrepreneur who was an early investor in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether. <\/p>\n

Not only has he given \u00a315m to the party, but he also gave Nigel Farage, the party leader, a personal gift of \u00a35m just before he became an MP. Mr Farage\u2019s failure to disclose that gift, as would appear to be required by the Code of Conduct for MPs, is the subject of a parliamentary inquiry. <\/p>\n

That personal gift is part of a larger story of a party that has been funded to an unusual extent by the denizens of the crypto subculture. <\/p>\n

There is no necessary problem with such a narrow funding base, except that Mr Farage has acted as an advocate for the crypto \u201cindustry\u201d, if it can be called that. He has promised to cut taxes on crypto profits if elected, and to create a Treasury bitcoin reserve fund. <\/p>\n

As Stella Creasey, the Labour MP, has said, \u201ceven if there is no connection between Mr Farage receiving substantial sums of money and his views on cryptocurrencies, the appearance of it undermines our democracy\u201d. <\/p>\n

It is possible that Mr Farage\u2019s support for policies that favour crypto merely reflect his ideological alignment with libertarians, but the appearance of possible influence by donors reflects badly on his judgement. <\/p>\n

Nor is it just donations that could give rise to the appearance of influence. Mr Farage holds shares in Stack BTC, a British bitcoin company, which would risk the appearance of a personal conflict of interest if he were to seek to enact pro-crypto policies if he were ever in government. <\/p>\n

We would not compare Mr Farage with his ally Donald Trump, who has corrupted American politics with his brazen personal enrichment \u2013 including issuing his own very much Ponzi-like cryptocurrency. <\/p>\n

By Mr Trump\u2019s standards, Mr Farage is a sea-green incorruptible. But the dependency of Mr Farage and his party on crypto interests, and his advocacy of policies that appear to favour those interests, does not look good. <\/p>\n

We hesitate to give Mr Farage advice about electoral strategy, but his closeness to crypto interests risks alienating fair-minded voters who might otherwise be prepared to give him a hearing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-746805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}