Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne: Who are the Sheffield-born crypto-billionaires who have donated £72m to Reform?

The donations, amounting to £36 million from each man, are the largest in British political history and together are equivalent to three-quarters of the money spent at the 2024 general election by all parties combined.

As well as being cryptocurrency billionaires who support Nigel Farage’s party, the two men share another connection – they are both from Yorkshire having been born and spent their early years in Sheffield.

Mr Harborne was a new entry on this year’s Sunday Times Rich List with an incredible £18.1 billion to his name - putting him sixth on the overall list and making him far and away the wealthiest person with a connection to the North.

The Guardian reported in April that Mr Harborne - who is described by his lawyers as an “intensely-private person” - was born in Mosborough, a village on the outskirts of Sheffield, in 1962.

Mark Vellacott, an aerospace businessman who was a friend of Mr Harborne’s late sister, told the newspaper that Mr Harborne’s father was an insurance investor while his mother was described as a resilient Yorkshirewoman from a well-off background.

As well as donating to the party, Thailand-based Mr Harborne has given £5 million to Nigel Farage personally, with the Reform leader’s failure to declare the gift leading to an investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.

Like Mr Harborne, Mr Delo, who was pardoned last year by Donald Trump after a conviction for violating the US Bank Secrecy Act, also has a Sheffield background.

A biography on the Ben Delo Foundation website states: “Ben was born in Sheffield to a civil engineer father and schoolteacher mother.

"He spent his childhood moving between a succession of primary schools, and at the age of 11 he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. It was at Lord Williams’s School, a state secondary school in Thame, Oxfordshire, that he began to flourish and with the right structured support in place, his academic potential was unlocked. He was awarded a place at Oxford University and graduated in 2005 with a double first-class honours degree in Mathematics and Computer Science.”

Mr Delo, who is aged 42, worked as a computer programmer and developed high-frequency trading systems at hedge funds and banks such as GSA Capital, Peel Hunt and JP Morgan. After moving to Hong Kong, he created a cryptocurrency trading platform called BitMEX. His foundation website states: “Since stepping back from an executive role at the firm, philanthropy has become his main focus, and he is a major donor to a number of causes which reflect long-held beliefs and values.”

In an interview last year, Mr Delo said he was expelled from three primary schools “for being too clever” after finding lessons too easy.

He said of his parents: “At school they started introducing themselves as ‘Sarah’s parents’. I just saw the world differently. I thought the world should meet me halfway.”

In the interview, Mr Delo described his opposition to political correctness. “The idea that there are true things you can’t say because they might upset middle-class people who are offended on behalf of someone else – autistic people simply can’t understand this. It makes no sense whatsoever.”

Meanwhile, Mr Harborne has been described as gentle and extremely clever, with Mr Vellacott saying: “Chris does not like anything that’s going to control him.”

Gawain Towler, a former director of communications for Reform, told The Guardian that Mr Harborne took a desk in the Brexit Party’s campaign headquarters during the 2019 General Election campaign.

He said: “He believed in the basic premise that Britain should govern itself. I never heard him say, ‘And I want you to have this policy’. The Brexit party only had one policy, and that was to have Brexit.”

Mr Harborne reportedly went to Westminster School and onto Cambridge before starting a business career, moving to Thailand in the mid-1990s and going onto found an investment firm called Sherriff Global.

He subsequently founded a jet fuel broker called AML Global and grew his wealth further through cryptocurrency trading.

The Sunday Times Rich List said he has a 12 per cent holding in cryptocurrency firm Tether, which is estimated to be valued at £200 billion and issues digital cash known as stablecoins.

It said his easiest UK asset to track is a £357 million stake in defence technology company QinetiQ.

What has been said about their donations?

Reform UK has insisted its two crypto-billionaire donors want “nothing” in exchange for their combined £72 million gifts to the party.

Neither Christopher Harborne nor Ben Delo will be given a knighthood, a peerage or a government contract if Reform comes to power, the party said, after receiving the two gifts in the space of 24 hours.

Mr Harborne said his gift was “a philanthropic gift to our country” intended to help the party prepare for government.

Mr Delo said his donation was intended to create a “level playing field” for Reform with the other parties.

The party has denied that the men will receive anything in return for their donations, tweeting: “Our donors want nothing and will never be given a peerage, knighthood or a government contract.”

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Nigel Farage said the money would be used “for one purpose only: to make certain we are ready to form a government at the next election”.

He said Reform would fund “the best research and policy department British politics has ever seen” and recruit “the best minds in every area”.

Mr Farage has long been a supporter of the cryptocurrency industry, and his party has announced a number of crypto-friendly policies.

Last year, Reform said it would slash taxes on crypto assets and set up a “Bitcoin reserve”, while the party also accepts donations in cryptocurrency.

Mr Harborne and Mr Delo’s gifts have also reignited calls for a cap on political donations.

Labour MP Stella Creasy said the donations showed a cap “cannot come too soon to protect British democracy”.

Ms Creasy is one of several backbenchers to have proposed an amendment to the Government’s Representation of the People Bill that would have prevented donors giving parties more than £100,000 in a single year.

Her amendment was not debated in the Commons after the Government said it would set up a taskforce to tackle the issue of “mega-donors”.

The Bill is set to be debated in the House of Lords on Monday, with Ms Creasy saying it provided an opportunity to “stop these people from distorting the next election”.

Duncan Hames, of Transparency International UK, said the donations made “an irrefutable case” for a cap, while campaign group Spotlight on Corruption said the donations could have a “huge and damaging impact” on UK politics.

MPs last week backed measures including a cap on overseas donations at £100,000 and a suspension of funding through cryptocurrency, but the draft legislation still needs to be passed by the House of Lords to become law.

The twin donations offer Mr Farage’s party a boost after a difficult summer that included the launch of a criminal investigation into allegations it breached rules on political donations.

Reform UK denies any wrongdoing and has said it will co-operate fully with the probe.