Who is the man behind the record-breaking multi-million pound donation to Reform UK?

Christopher Harborne gave Nigel Farage‘s party £9m in August, according to new data published by the Electoral Commission. The contribution ranks as the largest ever single donation from a living person in UK political history.

Born in Britain, Mr Harborne is a businessman who owns several companies, employing more than 600 people worldwide, according to a court filing dated last year.

Yet he’s not resident in the UK, and is also a citizen of Thailand, where he is known as Chakrit Sakunkrit, and has lived and worked there for 20 years.

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Nonetheless, he has a long history of political donations to British parties.

Electoral Commission data shows he has previously donated to the Conservatives, gifting them £10,000 in May 2001, and continuing to support them with close to £2m in donations by October 2022.

But there was been some overlap with his backing of Reform, which first received a donation from him in April 2019, for £200,000.

He’s also donated to Mr Farage personally, giving £27,616.76 in January so the Reform leader could attend the second inauguration of Donald Trump.

He paid another £32,836 for the Reform and a member of staff to fly to the US following the attempted assassination of Trump in July last year.

And he gave one of the biggest donations ever made to an individual UK politician when he backed Boris Johnson to the tune of £1m in 2022.

He served as an advisor to Mr Johnson during the former PM’s trip to Kyiv in 2023.

His latest cash injection to Reform UK breaks the previous record for a donation from a living person, which was £8m from supermarket tycoon Lord David Sainsbury to the Liberal Democrats in 2019.

The largest ever single donation to a UK political party was from his cousin, Lord John Sainsbury, who left more than £10.2m to the Conservatives in 2022 in his will.

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Electoral Commission records show Mr Harborne has made at least £24.5m in UK political donations since 2001.

But where is his money from?

Several of his businesses come under the banner of AML Global, including one registered in the UK, which has a London address listed with Companies House.

AML Global is described in a court filing as an international jet fuel broker that works with oil companies, and which has been awarded $39m (£29m) worth of contracts by the US Department of Defense.

Harborne was also an early investor in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

On his LinkedIn page, the businessman further describes himself as chair of Sherriff Global Group.

His profile shows he was educated at INSEAD business school, Cambridge University, and Westminster School.

Figures from the Electoral Commission released this week show Reform UK reported the most donations of any party in the third quarter of 2025, a total of £10,526,846.

By contrast, the Conservatives reported £7,038,861 in the same period, Labour £2,564,786, and the Liberal Democrats £2,174,712.

As an opening gambit at PMQs, Kemi Badenoch attacked Labour’s knight, the prime minister, over his Treasury queen, Rachel Reeves.

“We now know the black hole was fake, the chancellor’s book was fake, her CV was fake – even her chess claims are made up,” said the Tory leader.

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“She doesn’t belong in the Treasury; she belongs in la-la land.”

Chess claims made up? Where did that attacking move from Kemi come from? Hasn’t the chancellor told us for years that she was a national chess champion in 1993?

Indeed she has. “I am – I was – a geek. I played chess. I was the British girls’ under-14 champion,” she declared proudly in a 2023 interview with The Guardian.

She posted a video showing her playing chess in parliament and before last week’s budget posed for photos with a chessboard.

But her chess champion claim has been disputed by a former junior champion, Alex Edmans, who has accused her of misrepresenting her credentials.

“Her claim was quite specific,” Edmans, now a professor of finance at the London Business School, told Ali Fortescue on the Politics Hub on Sky News.

“She said she was the British girls’ under-14 champion. There was one event that can go on that title, which is the British Championship. And in the year that she claimed, it was Emily Howard who won that title instead.

“She did indeed win a quite different title. There was a British Women’s Chess Association championship, but that’s a more minor title. I’ve won titles like the British squad title, but that’s not the same.

“Just like running a marathon in London is not the same as the London Marathon, there was one event which is very prestigious, which is the British Championship.

“So the dispute is not whether she was a good or bad chess player. That shouldn’t be the criterion for a chancellor. But if you weren’t the British champion, you shouldn’t make that statement.”

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Oh dear! So now, along with allegations of plagiarism, a dodgy CV and “lying” – according to Ms Badenoch – about the nation’s finances, the chancellor is between a rook and a hard place.

Or is she? “This story is absolute nonsense,” a Treasury mate told Sky News. No word from the No.10 knight, Sir Keir Starmer, or his Downing Street ranks, however.

Emily Howard, as it happens, is now an accomplished composer, having graduated from the chessboard to the keyboard.

The chancellor’s opponents, meanwhile, claim her budget blunders means the Treasury queen has now become a pawn, there for the taking.

But since Rachel Reeves did indeed win a chess title, just not the one she claimed, her supporters insist she can justifiably claim to have been a champion.

So it’s too soon for Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives to claim checkmate. The dispute remains a stalemate. For now.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK have received its largest ever donation, with former Conservative donor Christopher Harborne handing the party £9m.

The donation – one of the largest in British political history – was made in August this year, according to filings from the Electoral Commission.

Mr Harborne, a British businessman based in Thailand, previously donated millions to Reform in 2019, when it was known as the Brexit Party, and has continued to give the party and Mr Farage cash.

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Between 2001 and 2022, he donated close to £2m to the Conservatives, according to Companies House.

The £9m handed to Reform UK on 1 August this year is the largest political donation on record from a living person, after Lord Sainsbury left £10m to the Conservatives in his will in 2023.

Educated in the UK, Mr Harbone is now based in Thailand, where he chairs the investment company Sherriff Global Group.

He also paid around £28,000 for Mr Farage to travel to the US for Donald Trump’s inauguration this year, and roughly £33,000 for the Reform leader to visit the president after the failed assassination attempt in the run-up to the election.

Responding to a question at a news conference from Sky News deputy political editor Sam Coates, Mr Farage said Mr Harborne has business interests all around the world, but his “natural home” was the UK.

He says the donation is “nothing out of the blue”, pointing to Mr Harbone donating significant sums to the Brexit Party.

“I think what he wants to do, really, is to try and help us get onto a level playing field with the trade union funded Labour Party, and a Conservative Party where there seems to be a remarkable correlation, I can’t think why, between donations and membership of the House of Lords,” Mr Farage said.

He added that “hand on heart” he has not promised anything to Mr Harborne in exchange for the money, adding that speaks to the Bangkok-based businessman “maybe once a month, maybe once every six weeks”.

Professor Justin Fisher of Brunel University, an expert in political donations, told Sky News: “It exposes the fact that this is a person who is a British citizen but is able to influence British politics without being subject to the laws that any Reform government might bring in, any tax arrangements that a Reform might bring in.

“This is foreign money by any other name.”

The professor pointed to the fact that in the 2022 Election Act under the Conservatives, the law was changed so that British citizens could live abroad their whole lives and stay on the electoral roll, allowing them to donate.

Previously, the cap had been set at 15 years of living overseas.

He added that it was not surprising to see a person with an interest in a particular policy area – like cryptocurrencies – give money to a political advocating for this cause.

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According to the Electoral Commission, political parties raised £24m in the third quarter of this year – up from £10m over the same time period last year, and £11m last quarter.

With the local and national assembly elections coming up in May next year, parties are building their war chests for the campaign.

Reform reported taking a total of £10,526,846, more than the Tories (£7,038,861), Labour (£2,564,786), and the Lib Dems (£2,174,712).

This means Mr Farage’s party raised almost as much as the three main parties combined (£11,778,359).

While the Green Party has reported an increase in donations since Zack Polanski became leader, these figures mostly cover the time before he took office, with the party only accepting £371,753.

Professor Jonathan Hopkin of the London School of Economics told Sky News the donation “shows the power of money in politics if one individual can make such a big difference to the resources available to a political party”.

He added that big donors giving to Reform who also have links to the Tories could separately “pressurise the Conservatives to step aside their candidates in seats that Reform are better placed to win”.

The fact that Reform has received large volumes of cash from a former Tory donor will do nothing to extinguish reports that the two parties are considering an electoral pact in time for the next general election.

The Financial Times reported that such an agreement was spoken about by Mr Farage in a discussion with party donors.

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Both the Conservatives and Reform have denied they will do a deal.

Reform currently lead voting intention polls, with the Conservatives and Labour together in joint second place, followed by the Greens.

A spokesperson for the Reform Party said: “This quarter’s figures show the incredible progress Reform UK is making. This is further evidence that we have all the momentum in British politics.”