Donation Curbs Unveiled as Farage Faces Second Inquiry Call
Ministers set out the detail of their political-funding crackdown — a £100,000 first-year cap on donations from new arrivals from abroad, profit tests on company donations, and first-ever disclosure rules covering the period immediately before candidacy — as the Liberal Democrats formally urged the standards commissioner to investigate the undeclared benefits to Nigel Farage alongside his existing £5m inquiry. Steve Reed said “British democracy is not for sale”; Labour’s Stella Creasy will push to cap all donations at £100,000.
The candidate-disclosure rule is the quietly pointed one: it covers exactly the pre-election window at issue in the Farage allegations, converting this week’s controversy into next month’s law. The commissioner has not yet said whether he will take up the new referral or fold it into the Harborne inquiry, whose findings are reported to be weeks away — an outcome that could carry serious consequences for Reform’s leader. Creasy’s universal-cap amendment tests where the incoming leadership actually stands on big money in politics, beyond the foreign-donor consensus. Watch the commissioner’s scope decision and the amendment votes later this month.