Will Reform return disgraced Crispin Odey's donation?

Good news from the world of finance, where the Brexit-backing hedge fund manager Crispin Odey has been banned from the City and fined £1.8m after deliberately attempting to frustrate a disciplinary process into sexual harassment allegations.

Odious has denied claims, reported by the Financial Times and Byline Media, of sexual assault and harassment against him from 20 women. The allegations led to him being removed from his hedge fund business Odey Asset Management, which announced that it was closing in October 2023.

Now the Financial Conduct Authority has said that Odey had shown “reckless disregard” for the governance of his hedge fund and his conduct proved he was “not a fit and proper person to perform any function related to regulated activities”. He intends to appeal against the decision.

Odious was a fervent backer of Brexit, giving the Vote Leave campaign group £873,000. His enthusiasm was not least because he made £220m on the night of the vote with a bet that markets would fall in the event of a vote to leave. He turned to Italian to express his delight, telling the BBC “Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca”, ‘the morning has gold in its mouth’.

Now he has very slightly less gold in his mouth, the hedge fund manager’s latest fall from grace presents a further problem for Nigel Farage’s beleaguered Reform party. Does it keep the £10,000 donation it took from him last year now he is fully disgraced in the eyes of the Square Mile?

Given that the donation was happily accepted two months after a string of allegations of sexual misconduct came to light, that Reform did its best to hide it until an investigative website discovered the source of the cash and that James McMurdock continues to sit as an MP for it despite serving a jail term for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, it’s a fair bet that the answer is “yes”.