Thread by @CharlieNotOld

🏮Reform’s financial juggernaut is old establishment money. REVEALED:
🟡Donors giving to both parties at once
🟡Tory donors switching to Reform, jacking up amounts
🟡Reform donors giving to specific Tory MPs… who then defect to Reform (No accusations of illegality in 🧵) 1/

Before we get into it, here are the donors in all their glory 2019-2025 Q3 from the electoral commission: h/t @chris_spencer04 🙏

Let’s start with a few two-timers:

1) Reform’s whale Christopher Harborne, the crypto and laser-weapon billionaire.

He’s given the Tories at least £1.5m, and Boris Johnson £1m personally.

Harborne gave to Reform and the Tories in both 2019 and 2022
offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/11004471

Dubai-based racehorse owner Fitriani Hay gave to both parties in the same week! On 4th June 2024, Hay gave the Tories two £5k donations. The next day, she shelled out £50k to Reform. Five days later, another £10k to the Tories. Riding two horses at once? emiratesracing.com/owners/acc-000…

Multimillionaire financier Jeremy Hosking gave the Conservatives £700,000, and Reform £2.5m - sometimes months apart. In April 2023 he gave £50k directly to Liz Truss. Two months later he gave Reform £15k donmcgowan333.substack.com/p/reforms-dubi…

More than 20 MPs and former MPs have now joined Reform. Lots of these politicians were being given money by Reform donors *while they were Tories*.

Take the donor Lord Bamford – of JCB fame. He and his company have given millions to the Tories:

superyachtfan.com/yacht/virginia…

In April last year JCB gave £10,000 to Jonathan Gullis, then the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. In November, Lord Bamford gave £200,000 to Reform. In December, Gullis joins Reform
bbc.com/news/articles/…

Bassim Haider, the telecoms billionaire and regular Davos attendee, gave 24 donations to the Tory party in 2023 and 2024, totaling £700,000. In that time, he gave just one donation directly to a Tory MP…
today.lorientlejour.com/article/147772…

That one anomaly was Lee Anderson. In March 2024, four months after Haider’s donation, Anderson defects to Reform and becomes the party’s first MP. Bassim Haider begins donating to Reform in January 2025. He’s now the party’s 11th biggest donor
theguardian.com/politics/2024/…

George Farmer’s a fascinating one. He ran the UK branch of Turning Point (Charlie Kirk’s outfit) and is married to the US new right super-influencer Candace Owens. His dad is Baron Farmer, a Tory life peer and Conservative mega-donor

George Farmer gave money to Ben Bradley when he was a Conservative MP.
This was Farmer's one and only donation since Reform’s founding – except the £200,000 he's given to Reform. In December 2025, Bradley joined Reform as head of "DOGE UK"
lgcplus.com/politics/gover…

At this point, I want to repeat, there's no accusation of illegality. In the above tweets I am simply stating facts.

Farage wants Reform to look like a serious party of government. He’s chosen to hire Tories. That’s spooked lots of party faithfuls and they're worrying Reform is a stalking horse. Andy Egginton is a former Reform candidate who left the party a while ago. He says of the party now:

Other formerly prominent members of Reform tell me that, ideology aside, what used to be a grassroots movement is now "fully part of the establishment":

Reform’s core voters started kicking off about Tories month ago.
A slew of Tory politicians joined Reform, then Nadhim Zahawi and Robert Jenrick defected and internal Facebook groups unraveled.
So many supporters called Reform “Tory 2.0” that debunking videos started to spread

(A few more interesting screen grabs. Reform members were not happy…)

In a bit of political theatre yesterday, Farage announced the first of his “shadow cabinet.”
2 of 4 are ex-Tory ministers: Jenrick and Braverman.
Both received donations *as Tories* from current Reform donors before defecting. Again, no allegations of illegality, etc...

92% of the Reform's donations come from one of two sources: The old establishment Tory donors, and Reform's own leadership.

The establishment anti-establishment. An old ruse. And an effective one…

Full piece here: @thenerve_news @carolecadwallathenerve.news/p/reform-fundi…