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BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo and crypto investor Christopher Harborne announced £36 million pledges to Reform UK on consecutive days in September 2026, taking the party’s two-day total to £72 million. Delo’s September 11 pledge was described as the largest single donation to a British political party, before Harborne said he would match it the following day.
The announced sum is substantially larger than the £15.49 million in donations and public funds that Reform UK reported accepting across the first two quarters of 2026. It also extends a funding relationship that was already visible in Electoral Commission records earlier in the year.
Delo and Harborne’s consecutive £36 million pledges
Sky News reported that Delo announced his £36 million donation on September 11, 2026. The outlet described it as the largest single donation made to a British political party.
Harborne announced a matching £36 million donation on September 12, bringing the value of the two publicly announced pledges to £72 million, according to The Independent. The back-to-back announcements made the second pledge significant not merely as another large contribution, but as an explicit match of the first.
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, as reported by Sky News, Harborne characterised his contribution as a philanthropic gift meant to help Reform prepare for government. He also said a competitive instinct had led him to match Delo’s donation.
The announcements concern pledges made by the two men. The Electoral Commission’s published donation data, by contrast, records donations and public funds accepted by parties during defined reporting periods. That distinction matters when comparing a newly announced total with quarterly receipts already reported to the regulator.
£72 million versus Reform UK’s reported first-half receipts
Reform UK reported accepting £9.94 million in donations and public funds during the first quarter of 2026, followed by £5.55 million in the second quarter. Together, those reported first-half receipts came to £15.49 million, based on Electoral Commission figures.
The £72 million pledged by Delo and Harborne therefore exceeds the party’s reported total for those two quarters combined. The comparison illustrates the unusual scale of the two announcements: each individual £36 million pledge is itself greater than Reform’s reported first-half donations and public funds total.
Because quarterly figures capture the party’s reported accepted funding over a set period rather than a single headline-making pledge, they offer a useful baseline. The new donations have focused attention on two donors already named in the party’s recorded funding.
The donors had already funded Reform UK in 2026
Neither Delo nor Harborne was a new name in Reform UK’s 2026 donation record. Electoral Commission search results show £3 million from Harborne and £2 million from Delo recorded in January, among donations made to the party in the first part of the year.
The September pledges therefore mark a sharp escalation of established financial support, not a first intervention by either donor. Harborne’s January donation was larger than Delo’s, but the September announcements put both men at the same £36 million level.
The record also provides a clear sequence: millions in recorded contributions from both donors in January, followed by Delo’s record-sized September announcement and then Harborne’s matching commitment. The two £36 million pledges have now become the defining figures in Reform UK’s funding story for 2026.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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