Reform UK Party pressed to give details on donations

The Liberal Democrats have publicly challenged Nigel Farage to give details on his party's donations after calculating that Reform UK spent more than £2m on personalised letters to postal voters before the local elections.

- Peter Walker

In a letter to Farage, Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dems' deputy leader, said people needed to know the source of the money before Thursday's elections, given that Reform received only £281,000 in donations in the last set of publicly available figures, for the final quarter of 2024.

Noting that Reform's treasurer, Nick Candy, had said last week that the party was targeting wealthy donors in low-tax overseas destinations such as Monaco, Cooper said Farage should "publicly rule out accepting any donations from wealthy donors linked to Russia or the Trump administration".

In response, Reform said the campaign was being primarily funded by smaller donations, which do not need to be declared, and by its income from membership subscriptions.