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It is sobering that Count Binface’s potential victory in the Clacton byelection seems be one of the few ways we can restore any confidence in the integrity of British political decision-making. Faced with questions about the millions he has raked in before and since being elected, Nigel Farage chose to face a byelection rather than face the standards procedures in parliament. Yet we cannot continue to rely on a man with a bin on his head to stop the toxic rot in our politics feeding off the public’s concern that donations drive our decision-making. With the next election on the horizon, the eye-watering sums involved compel us to tackle the capacity of the largest wallets to be the loudest voices, or risk them overwhelming our democracy altogether.
The allegation that money buys you a mouthpiece is not new, or without precedent. Controversies over donors across the political spectrum – whether Bernie Ecclestone, Mohamed Amersi, Paul Marshall or Lubov Chernukhin – have dogged Westminster for decades. Campaigns such as Clean up Westminster have long pushed for stronger safeguards. Yet it is also true the scale of funds now pouring into our politics is fundamentally different. Research by Transparency International shows the share of private political donations coming from individuals and companies giving £1m or more has surged from just 1% in 2015 to 35% in 2024.
Little wonder 83% of the British public think the wealthy are trying to buy influence. Without state funding, donations are necessary for all our political movements to operate. Those who give often do so because of their beliefs, not their business interests. But like wrestling with a pig, all will get covered in mud if we don’t clean up the mess created by those who seek to misuse their money with malign intent.
The government last year commissioned the Rycroft review into foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics. It called for a cap of £100,000 for donations from overseas actors, and a minimum one-year residency in the UK to be exempted. Yet if you are wealthy enough to give a political party £5m, you are probably wealthy enough to avoid taxes and circumvent bans on cryptocurrencies with shell companies and anonymous UK postcodes. Faced with these proposals, Christopher Harborne – the crypto-billionaire benefactor of Farage based in Thailand – reportedly concluded “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and registered a Hampshire address.
More fundamentally, the location of a donor is a red herring. In a democracy all voices must be equal, and as such no donation should dim or dominate the concerns heard to the detriment of others. No single person should wield the kind of financial influence that these individuals increasingly appear to have over our fragile and precious democracy, regardless of their passport. Whether they are based in Bangkok or Basingstoke is beside the point. That is why many other jurisdictions – France, Italy, Australia and even the US – limit what an individual can give in any year to any cause regardless of their address.
Next Tuesday, the representation of the people bill returns to the Commons. It contains much to welcome, including implementing Rycroft’s recommendations. Yet if we don’t close the loophole that means the cap on donations doesn’t apply if you can acquire a UK postcode, money will continue to flow like water and find a way in to pollute our system. My amendment to limit all single donations in a calendar year to £100,000 – a huge sum itself to most – would ensure no one can evade a cap wherever they are based.
It also differentiates between the handful of actors trying to buy democracy and the rich tapestry of trade unions, cooperatives and civil-society organisations that are the lifeblood of our democratic system. Their political funds allow members to donate together and are one of the cleanest types of political funding, with explicit transparency already written into our laws on how such money is raised and why it is given. Too often such groups have been blamed for why previous attempts at donation laws have broken down, including the 2007 Hayden Philips review. With the monies now rebounding around our politics from a small handful of individuals, we must not again let unions be the fall guy for a failure to act.
Whether a million-pound individual donation from a private benefactor comes from overseas or from a UK-based billionaire, the public understand the risk remains broadly the same: that political outcomes are being sold to the highest bidder rather than being fought for through a battle of ideas. The apparent view of Harborne that where there’s a will, there’s a way correctly describes the current situation – but that’s a bad situation. This Tuesday, MPs can show they have both a will and a way to protect our politics from the perception as well as the reality of impropriety. That cannot be left to Count Binface.
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