Elon Musk has denied rumours that he is about to donate $100m – about £78.5m – to Reform. But Nigel Farage must be hoping the billionaire Trumpite changes his mind after new figures reveal the party received just £70,000 from donors in the three months to the end of September.
Even worse, Reform was forced to reject as “impermissible” a similar sum of attempted donations from a total of 18 individual donors, who together wanted to hand Farage and co. £66,500.
The party’s accepted donations comprised £25,000 from London-based Prema Properties, £20,000 chemical product firm Hepburn Bio Care UK and £25,000 from Computacenter tycoon Philip Hulme. The rejected donors – all individuals – were offering as little as £1,000 and as much as £25,000.
Under electoral law it is up to the recipient party to check whether a donation is permissible. A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission explains: “Parties have 30 days to decide whether to accept a donation, and they do not necessarily have to accept all donations they receive from donors. Parties also must not accept impermissible donations, and this party reported receiving several that they did not accept.”
On the subject of whether Musk could wade in with his millions to bail out Farage, a fellow Trump brown-noser, the watchdog said: “There is no limit to the amount that parties can raise, but they must only accept donations from permissible sources and these must pass a permissibility check. Permissible sources include most UK-registered companies, trade unions and building societies, as well as anyone registered to vote in the UK.”
