12th September 2026
Britain has just witnessed something that should make us stop and think about the future of our democracy.
Reform UK has received a £36 million donation from cryptocurrency entrepreneur Ben Delo, the largest single political donation in British history. The money is intended to be released at the equivalent of £1 million a month up to the next general election. Delo says he wants to give Reform a “fair fight” against the established parties.
There is nothing inherently wrong with someone supporting a political party whose policies they believe in. The more difficult question is whether £36 million is too much political influence for one individual to be able to provide.
And that leads to a bigger question.
Is Britain beginning to travel down the same road as the United States, where enormous political spending has given a relatively small number of extremely wealthy people an extraordinary influence over elections?
We are not there yet.
Britain still has considerably stronger controls over election spending than America, and political parties face spending limits during regulated election periods. That means a wealthy donor cannot simply turn £36 million into unlimited election advertising in the way that money can flow through the American system.
But the direction of travel is worth examining.
America provides a useful warning because its political system has progressively become more dependent upon very wealthy donors and organisations capable of spending enormous amounts of money.
A major turning point came in 2010 with the US Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. It opened the way for corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to spend unlimited amounts through independent political organisations.
The result has been the development of the super PAC, which can raise and spend unlimited sums provided it is formally independent of candidates and campaigns.
The scale is now enormous.
In the 2024 US election cycle, super PACs spent at least $2.7 billion. The Brennan Center reports that just 10 individual donors accounted for about 44% of the money raised to support Donald Trump's campaign, with most of that money flowing through outside groups.
There is an even murkier side to the American system. “Dark money” organisations can spend on politics without fully revealing who ultimately provided the money. The Brennan Center estimates that more than $1.9 billion of dark money entered the 2024 federal election cycle.
That is the danger Britain should be trying to avoid rather than waiting until it arrives. The interesting thing about the Reform donation is that it demonstrates both sides of the argument.
A new or smaller political party can quite reasonably complain that the established parties have enormous advantages. A very large donation can allow an outsider to build an organisation, develop policies, employ staff and communicate with voters.
In that sense, big money can actually increase political competition. But there is a point where the argument changes. If political parties increasingly need billionaire backing to become serious contenders, then political success begins to depend upon access to wealth rather than simply access to voters.
That would be a serious change in British democracy.
It also doesn't matter which party receives the money. Today the £36 million is going to Reform. Tomorrow a billionaire could decide to give £36 million to Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats or another party.
If we object only when we dislike the recipient, we are missing the real issue. The principle should be the same for everyone. There is another reason to be cautious.
Large donations do not have to buy an explicit promise to create influence. A wealthy donor does not have to say, “I will give you £36 million if you adopt policy X.”
Influence can be much more subtle. A party may become dependent upon a small number of wealthy supporters. It may become reluctant to alienate them. Or simply knowing that a particular group of people is providing enormous financial support may affect the political environment in which decisions are made.
Even where nothing improper happens, voters can reasonably ask whether the system is fair. This is why Britain should perhaps stop thinking about political donations solely as a question of whether the money is legal.
Something can be completely legal and still be unhealthy for democracy.
The present British system places considerable emphasis on whether someone is a permissible donor. There is no general maximum donation to a political party.
Perhaps that needs reconsidering. One possibility would be to introduce a maximum amount that any individual or organisation could donate to a political party during a parliamentary term.
Another would be to combine a lower donation limit with some form of public funding based on electoral support. That would reduce the dependence of parties on wealthy individuals while still allowing citizens to support the parties they choose.
Neither solution is perfect. Public funding would mean taxpayers contributing towards parties they may strongly oppose. Donation limits could make it harder for new parties to challenge established organisations.
But there is a wider principle at stake. Political parties are not ordinary businesses. They are part of the machinery through which citizens choose their government.
Perhaps that means their financing should be treated differently from ordinary charitable or commercial activity.
The £36 million Reform donation should therefore not simply become another political argument between Reform supporters and its opponents. It should prompt a question that applies to all parties.
How much political influence should one person be able to buy? Britain still has time to answer that question before it develops the American system in which billionaire-backed organisations can spend billions of dollars attempting to shape elections.
The lesson from America is not that wealthy people should be prevented from having political opinions.
They should not. The lesson is that once enormous private fortunes become deeply embedded in the political system, it can become extremely difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.
Britain therefore has a choice. It can wait until political donations become so large that billionaire backing is effectively a requirement for serious political competition.
Or it can decide now that there should be a sensible limit to the amount of political influence that any individual fortune can provide.
The £36 million donation may be perfectly legal. But perhaps that is precisely why we should be asking whether the law itself now needs to change.
Democracy is supposed to give every citizen one vote. It should not eventually become a system where the richest citizens can effectively buy millions of pounds worth of additional political influence.