Labour’s crackdown on Reform donations is a bid to save democracy – and itself

I t is unprecedented in British politics for a ruling party to state that it is planning to change the law retrospectively with the intention of cancelling a rival’s donations.

But that was the response of Angela Rayner to the news that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK had received not one but two donations from crypto billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo totalling £72 million in little over 24 hours.

She stated quite bluntly that the Representation of the People Bill 2026 will be used “retrospectively” and “backdated to 25 March” when the law to stop foreign and crypto donations was announced.

She said: “It's a really live question for us about making sure that our democracy is about the people and them having a choice, and not about people with billions of pounds being able to buy their way in.”

But the real question here is whether Labour is trying to save British democracy or itself.

The Representation of the People Bill 2026 started under the premiership of Sir Keir Starmer and is being continued by Andy Burnham.

It is already proving to be a highly controversial piece of legislation which Labour argues is important to secure the integrity of British politics and increase representation but critics claim is designed to rig the electoral system.

Initially, the legislation was brought forward to increase the right to vote in general elections to 16 and 17-year-olds. That right already exists in Scotland and Wales for councils and the devolved parliaments.

While Labour has sold it as being about fairness, both Reform and the Tories argued that this was aimed at increasing the number of leftwing voters because younger voters are more likely to support leftwing parties.

But the legislation was expanded once concerns began about large sums of money going to Reform from donors based abroad well before the £72m over the past few days.

The alarm bells were ringing when Mr Harborne handed Reform a then-record breaking single donation of £9m in August 2025.

Added to that, there was a huge concern about Reform announcing it was taking crypto donations. Crypto is much harder to trace than normal currency and can be used in transactions without ever needing to convert it into normal currency, which means it can be hidden from the authorities at all stages.

Ms Rayner, and before that other Labour ministers have argued that the rules need to change urgently to protect the integrity of British democracy.

There is a serious concern that the rules, as they stand, are allowing billionaires living outside the UK and not paying tax in the UK to influence British democracy with their wealth.