Who’s the person behind the record-breaking multi-million pound donation to Reform UK?
Christopher Harborne gave Nigel Farage’s celebration £9m in August, based on new knowledge printed by the Electoral Fee. The contribution ranks as the most important ever single donation from a dwelling particular person in UK political historical past.
Born in Britain, Mr Harborne is a businessman who owns a number of firms, using greater than 600 individuals worldwide, based on a court docket submitting dated final yr.
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Reform UK chief Nigel Farage
But he isn’t resident within the UK, and can be a citizen of Thailand, the place he is called Chakrit Sakunkrit, and has lived and labored there for 20 years.
Nonetheless, he has a protracted historical past of political donations to British events.
Electoral Fee knowledge reveals he has beforehand donated to the Conservatives, gifting them £10,000 in Might 2001, and persevering with to assist them with near £2m in donations by October 2022.
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Christopher Harborne, furthest proper, joins Boris Johnson, left, throughout his go to to Lviv, Ukraine. Pic: Metropolis of Lviv
However there was been some overlap along with his backing of Reform, which first acquired a donation from him in April 2019, for £200,000.
He is additionally donated to Mr Farage personally, giving £27,616.76 in January so the Reform chief might attend the second inauguration of Donald Trump.
He paid one other £32,836 for the Reform and a member of workers to fly to the US following the tried assassination of Trump in July final yr.
And he gave one of many largest donations ever made to a person UK politician when he backed Boris Johnson to the tune of £1m in 2022.
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Christopher Harborne sits second left from Boris Johnson, centre, throughout his go to to Lviv, Ukraine. Pic: Metropolis of Lviv
He served as an advisor to Mr Johnson throughout the former PM’s journey to Kyiv in 2023.
His newest money injection to Reform UK breaks the earlier document for a donation from a dwelling particular person, which was £8m from grocery store tycoon Lord David Sainsbury to the Liberal Democrats in 2019.
The biggest ever single donation to a UK political celebration was from his cousin, Lord John Sainsbury, who left greater than £10.2m to the Conservatives in 2022 in his will.
Electoral Fee information present Mr Harborne has made a minimum of £24.5m in UK political donations since 2001.
However the place is his cash from?
A number of of his companies come beneath the banner of AML World, together with one registered within the UK, which has a London handle listed with Corporations Home.
AML World is described in a court docket submitting as a world jet gasoline dealer that works with oil firms, and which has been awarded $39m (£29m) price of contracts by the US Division of Protection.
Harborne was additionally an early investor in Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies.
On his LinkedIn web page, the businessman additional describes himself as chair of Sherriff World Group.
His profile reveals he was educated at INSEAD enterprise faculty, Cambridge College, and Westminster College.
Figures from the Electoral Fee launched this week present Reform UK reported probably the most donations of any celebration within the third quarter of 2025, a complete of £10,526,846.
Against this, the Conservatives reported £7,038,861 in the identical interval, Labour £2,564,786, and the Liberal Democrats £2,174,712.
