Who Funds Reform? The Missing Millions
5/28/202632 min
Who is the secretive billionaire bankrolling Reform — and what does he want? How did a brand new party raise and spend £17 million with no public explanation? As Farage inches toward power, who's really pulling the strings? This four part series, made in collaboration with The Observer’s Slow Newscast will explore the money, donors and power networks behind Reform UK. To hear all four episodes as they drop, sign up at therestispolitics.com Go deeper into the world of The Rest Is Politics by signing up for our free newsletter HERE, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and weekend reads from Alastair and Rory. The Rest Is Politics is powered by Fuse Energy. Stop overpaying for energy. Switch at fuseenergy.com/politics and get a free TRIP+ subscription. Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/restispolitics It's risk-free with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee ✅ Reporter: Cat Neilan Series Reporter/Producer: Poppy Bullard Producer: Matt Russell Sound Design: Dominic Delargy Producer for Goalhanger: India Dunkley Executive Producer for Goalhanger: Tom Whiter Executive Producer for the Observer: Jasper Corbett Clips: Reform UK, BBC, The Times, House of Commons Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlastair Campbell· Host0:00
Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. To support the podcast, listen without the adverts, and get early access to episodes and live show tickets, go to therestispolitics.com. That's therestispolitics.com.
Rory Stewart· Host0:11
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to The Rest is Politics with me, Rory Stewart.
Alastair Campbell· Host0:23
And with me, Alastair Campbell. And we have very exciting news about a four-part miniseries that we are doing on the funding of Reform UK.
Rory Stewart· Host0:35
And we're doing it with The Observer, and it's been an amazing piece of work. The series is put together by Cat Neelan, who's The Observer's Whitehall editor. In episode one, we begin the story of who funds Reform UK. So it's something that Alastair and I have been fascinated by for a very long time. And of course, we get glimpses of it. Many people will have heard that Nigel Farage received a £5 million contribution towards his, inverted commas, "security" from Chris Harburn, who is a crypto billionaire based in Thailand. But as this investigation shows, the story of Reform's funding is much, much more complicated, and they've got some unique interviews here. They've interviewed Ben Habib, who was very close to Nigel Farage and is now beginning to talk much more openly about where some of this funding is coming from. We're talking about Tory donors crossing the aisles. We're talking about the kinds of motivations that drive them in. And above all, we're talking about how opaque it