Huge sums of money continue to be funnelled into the hard-right of British politics after a tech entrepreneur gave half a million pounds to Rupert Lowe’s party.
In recent months, it’s Reform UK who have made headlines over their finances and donations, from the nose-bleed inducing amounts being given to the party by crypto billionaires to the police investigations into payments Reform has received.
But it’s not just Reform on the right who are getting some substantial financial backing from wealthy individuals.
This week, Rupert Lowe revealed Restore Britain, the far-right party he founded after leaving Reform UK, had been handed £500,000 by Simon Galbraith, a tech entrepreneur and investor based in Cambridge.
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In a post on X this week, Lowe said he was “delighted” to announce that Galbraith had donated two sums of £250,000 through his investment company Cade Hill, one in April and another in August.
In a statement, Galbraith said he had made the donations to Restore Britain the money because he believed Britain is in “decline.”
He continued: “There is a centralised, bloated and incompetent state which is increasingly undemocratic, British institutions are unfocused on what they should be for, and our democracy doesn’t represent the interests and opinions of many.
“I love my country. I’ve built my businesses here, raised my family here and made my life here.”
He added: “Financially it would make a great deal of sense for me to leave, as many people with my wealth have chosen to do, but I don’t want to. I want to live in Britain, and feel a responsibility to contribute to fixing it.”
The donation to Restore Britain comes amid growing pressure on the government and Andy Burnham to introduce a cap on how much money parties can receive in donations.
As parliament returned following summer recess this week, so did Labour’s elections bill which, among other things, will cap overseas donations to parties.
But Labour MP Stella Creasey is calling for the Representation of the People Bill to introduce a cap on all donations.
She has tabled an amendment which would introduce an immediate cap on political donations set at £500,000, reducing to £100,000 in the second year, and requiring the Government to set a permanent donations cap thereafter.