# Honest Bob defends Reform's £72m

> Two crypto billionaires hand Reform £72m, and the party sends out the man who once saved a donor £45m in tax to explain why that's fine.
- Title: Honest Bob defends Reform's £72m · the Guardian | Shortify
- Summary: Two crypto billionaires hand Reform £72m, and the party sends out the man who once saved a donor £45m in tax to explain why that's fine. Reform spent years…
- Keywords: reform uk, party funding, crypto, robert jenrick, satire, news, world, Honest, Bob, defends, Reform's, 72m
- Source: the Guardian — https://theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/13/reform-latest-millions-honest-bob-jenrick
- Published: 2026-09-13T15:51:44+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: reform uk, party funding, crypto, robert jenrick, satire, news, world
## Two donations, £36m each
Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo handed Reform £72m between them. Nigel Farage no longer has to fund his own security, or count the £500k lunch donations from overseas.

> You wait years for one party donation of £36m and then two come along at once.
## The outrage is selective
Had Labour or the Tories taken £72m from two billionaires, Reform would have called the system rigged and the main parties hotwired cash machines. The money landed with them instead, so everyone is relaxed.

> Who wouldn't want a country where two billionaires can attempt to buy the democratic process?
## Who they sent out
Reform put Robert Jenrick on the Laura Kuenssberg show to talk about the party's incorruptibility. As a junior minister he unlawfully overruled the planning inspector.
## The Desmond discount
That overruling saved Tory donor and pornographer Richard Desmond close to £45m in tax. The Tories got about £12k back. Even as a transaction, it was badly priced.

> You'd have hoped the lesson Honest Bob had learned from that was not to sell his soul so cheaply.
## At least two investigations
Reform faces police investigations into alleged financial wrongdoing, hard enough to count that the number keeps slipping. Jenrick's answer was that everything was above board.

> Everything was totally above board.
## No refunds
Kuenssberg asked whether Reform might have to return money if the Rycroft review into party funding were applied retrospectively. Jenrick said not a penny goes back.

> Finders keepers. Possession nine-tenths of the law.
## Murk as transparency
The spin was that £72m from two crypto fortunes proves confidence and openness, not opacity. Jenrick's benchmark: unlike Tory donors buying peerages for under £100k, these two asked for no honours.

> Far from being an indication that the party's funding had become exponentially more murky, this was proof that it was being totally transparent.
## Just two regular patriots
Delo was convicted in the US over anti-money-laundering failures, then pardoned by Trump. Harborne lives in Thailand, Delo has been based in Hong Kong. Jenrick called them philanthropists.

> They are both just patriots.
## Unions, but crypto
Jenrick likened £72m from two crypto empires to thousands of workers paying union subs to Labour. What the pair really want is a £15k income tax threshold, worth about £500 each.
## Only the start
The money funds professionalisation: billboards, bus sites, friendly TV. GB News already does it free, so the target moves to the BBC. Welfare, what's left, paid in crypto.

> Make no mistake. This £72m was only the start.
## Key takeaway

Reform spent years attacking big-money politics as rigged, right up until the big money arrived in its own account.