Reform UK would lose 85% of funding under proposed donation cap, analysis shows

Exclusive: Party would have raised £4.1m instead of £26.7m last year if £100k funding limit had been in place, Electoral Commission data suggests Reform UK would have held just 15% of the donations it received last year if a proposed £100,000 cap on political donations had been in force, according to analysis shared with the Guardian. The analysis by Friends of the Earth using Electoral Commission data highlights the party’s reliance on a handful of wealthy backers in advance of a showdown over political funding. It registered donations between April 2025 and March 2026 and assumed union affiliation payments would be exempt from the cap, in line with recommendations made by the Phillips review into party funding. The findings suggest Reform UK would have raised just £4.1m between April 2025 and March 2026, instead of the £26.7m it actually received, if a £100,000 annual donation limit applied. Reform’s registered average donation last year was £137,496, almost six times higher than Labour’s £23,406 or the Conservatives’ £23,173 and 30 times higher than the Liberal Democrats’ average donation of £4,496. By comparison, Labour would have retained about three-quarters of its registered