By Channel 4 News Investigations Team
The cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne has used “gaping loopholes” in the law to bankroll Reform UK while declaring his home as both Thailand and the UK to different authorities, Channel 4 News can reveal.
Harborne, one of the biggest donors in British political history, moved from Britain to Thailand in the 1990s and became a Thai citizen in 2011.
At the time, British citizens who lived abroad could only donate to UK political parties for 15 years after they emigrated. But the majority of Harborne’s more than £25 million in registered donations were made at least 20 years after he moved to Thailand.
2016: Harborne registers in Hampshire
An investigation by Channel 4 News can now reveal that Harborne, pictured below, flew back to the UK before the Brexit referendum in June 2016 and registered with electoral officials as living in Hampshire.
He did so even though he then declared in company documents in October that year - just a few months after the referendum - that he was living in Thailand.
This meant that he could legally continue to be classed as resident in Thailand for commercial reasons - presumably with all the potential benefits that come with living offshore - while also lawfully being able to vote for Brexit as a UK resident and donate significant sums from abroad for another 15 years.
For some time Harborne was then registered as an overseas donor, based back in Thailand. But last month the 63-year-old again registered to vote as a resident in Hampshire, in the Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council area. This will allow him to continue funding Reform UK, after Labour announced proposals for a new £100,000 cap on donations from abroad.
However, he still appears as usually resident in Thailand on publicly-available UK company documents. Any change of residency should, by law, be declared to Companies House within 14 days.
Channel 4 News understands that it is lawful to register as a UK resident with electoral officials despite not living here permanently, even if you also declare to Companies House that you are usually resident offshore. Electoral rules do not specify how many days someone needs to be living at an address per year to be classed as resident as a voter and donor.
Experts said this was a “gaping loophole” - allowing people to benefit from declaring they live in different places - and that urgent legal change was needed to prevent people playing the system.
They also said this could undermine Labour plans to crack down on foreign donations, with individuals potentially able to bypass proposed new rules by registering as UK-based voters, even if they do not live here permanently.
Under tax rules, people have to pay tax here if they spend 183 days or more in the UK. Those who live offshore for tax purposes do not pay UK tax on their overseas income. Harborne’s representatives were asked where he has been resident for tax purposes throughout this time, but did not provide an answer.
£5 million gift to Farage
Harborne is already facing significant scrutiny after it emerged that he had made a £5 million gift to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in April 2024 in the months before Farage announced he would stand for election in Clacton and become Reform UK leader.
Farage has denied wrongdoing and said the money was a private gift that did not need to be declared. The gift is being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner as rules state that new MPs must declare any registrable benefits they received in the year before they were elected. The revelations led to Farage standing down as an MP and forcing a by-election in Clacton.
UK Companies House documents show that Harborne has declared Thailand as his country of usual residence on several occasions, from at least 2005 and up until 2022. He has not claimed his country of residence as the UK in any of the public Companies House filings seen by Channel 4 News.
In a lawsuit filed by Harborne’s lawyers against the Wall Street Journal in February 2024, a bank application was referred to from November 2018, which stated that he was “a long term resident of Thailand (20+ years)”.
The document also stated that Harborne had lived and worked in Thailand for more than 20 years at the time it was filed. It said he acquired Thai nationality in 2011 and thus also used the Thai name Chakrit Sakunkrit. There was no mention in the filings of any permanent residence in the UK.
The Electoral Commission is understood to be in touch with Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council about our findings.
System with ‘gaping loopholes’
Vijay Rangarajan, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission, said “concerns about the accuracy of the electoral register are taken seriously by the Commission and the local authority, who remain in regular contact.”
While Dr Sam Power, an expert in political finance and electoral regulation, told us: “We see someone working in a system that is incredibly permissive, in a system which has gaping loopholes.”
Harborne has donated £15 million to Reform UK since 2025 and previously gave £10.2 million to the Brexit Party. Reform UK did not respond to a request for comment.
Harborne also previously donated around £1.79 million to the Conservative Party. A Conservative Party spokesman said it fully complied with the law, performed due diligence on donors and only accepted donations from permissible sources.
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council said it could not comment on individual cases, adding: “Objections to an existing registration must be made by a registered elector currently on the electoral register in the area.”
A government spokesman said: “We’re strengthening political finance rules and protecting British democracy so the rules can’t be dodged.”
Christopher Harborne declined to comment.
This is the tip of an iceberg. We must understand how oligarchs operate cross borders and across jurisdictions.
The wealth defence industry is there to ensure the continuing wealth and political clout of a minority of the internationally based individuals who collude to ensure their strategic relevance.
This is not a conspiracy theory this is happening now.
The right wing have achieved a coup in the biggest democracy in the world, the USA. They are now gunning for UK and Europe.
Why?
Because as in recently publicised Prospero if a low tax, low wage, non regulated economic environment can be created all their wet dreams will come true.
They do not believe in community, utilitarianism or the greater good, they believe in only the mammon and gathering more and more for themselves at the expense of all others and to achieve that in any way they can.
People like Farage and Trump are the stormtroopers not the innovators and the way it works is where extreme inequality exists tell people constantly it’s the fault of those who can’t fight back. The poor, the weak, who are mainly foreign or those who are not “normal”. Keep repeating this mantra and eventually people will believe it. AKA Brexit.
Excellent report. Thanks - and keep on keeping on.