Elon Musk
among billionaires set to donate to Reform UK, says treasurer
Nick Candy
promises that party will deliver ‘political disruption like we have never seen
before’
Harry Taylor
and PA Media
Sun 22 Dec
2024 23.21 GMT
The
treasurer of Reform UK has said that Elon Musk is among a “number of
billionaires” interested in donating to Nigel Farage’s party, promising
“political disruption like we have never seen before”.
Nick Candy
told the Financial Times that the party will raise more funds than “any other
political party” for grassroots campaigning, data and polling.
He also
predicted Reform UK would have more members than Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives
in three months.
He said: “We
have a number of billionaires prepared to donate to the party, not just Elon.
“The Reform
party is the disrupter – this is the seed round, the series A. This will be
political disruption like we have never seen before.”
Farage and
Candy met Musk at president-elect Donald Trump’s resort Mar-a-Lago in Florida
earlier in December.
Candy, 51,
who is married to Australian actor and singer Holly Vallance, said the founder
of Tesla would be the “first of many wealthy donors legally allowed to donate”.
“Even the
big Tory donors are calling me,” he told the Financial Times. “A lot of people
will join us. The movement has started.”
Current
electoral rules mean that if the tech billionaire was to donate to Reform UK,
he would have to do so through one of his UK-based businesses.
Parties can
accept donations from a number of sources including individuals on the UK
electoral register or a UK-registered company.
The head of
the Electoral Commission, Vijay Rangarajan, has called for the rules to be
strengthened to “protect the electoral system from foreign interference”.
On Sunday,
Commons leader Lucy Powell said there were no “immediate” plans to introduce
further restrictions on overseas political donations.
She told
Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News: “We’ve no immediate plans to
do that, but we do have a manifesto commitment to look more broadly at our
elections regime in this country.”
Shadow
cabinet minister Kevin Hollinrake said he would not seek to block Musk making a
donation, but suggested he would like him to back the Tories instead.
He said: “I
have great faith in the British public. I don’t think the British public could
be easily bought. I think they’ll decide at the next election who they think
the best party is to run this country. And I think they’ll choose
Conservatives.”
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