Reform UK received £600,000 in one week’s donations, as Labour outstrips Tories

Reform UK saw a sudden hike in campaign donations in the fourth week of the General Election campaign, while Labour maintained its overall funding lead over the Tories, the latest data from the Electoral Commission shows.

Figures published on Monday show that Nigel Farage’s party raised some £592,360 during the period between June 20 and 26.

The largest single donor to Reform was businessman Zia Yusuf, listed as Muhammad Ziauddin Yusuf in official documentation, who gave £200,000 to the party.

Mr Yusuf is the co-founder of a luxury concierge service app called Velocity Black, which he reportedly sold for £233 million in 2023.

Speaking to the Telegraph newspaper during the election campaign, Mr Yusuf said the vast majority of British Muslims were patriotic and believed net migration was too high.

Jeremy Hosking, a businessman and long-time Conservative donor was also revealed to have given Reform £125,000.

Mr Hosking was a backer of the Vote Leave campaign during the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, and supported Brexit-backing candidates at the 2017 general election.

He has also previously donated money to the Reclaim Party led by actor Laurence Fox.

Elsewhere, Reform received donations of £100,000 apiece from company called Evan Management and an individual named Duncan Mackay.

The party’s fourth-week war chest was a significant rise on the previous week, when it registered just £99,000 in donations, but was a step down from the £742,000 it raised in week two of the campaign.

The Liberal Democrats were in receipt of the second highest amount of money during the fourth week of campaigning, having raised £515,982.

Nearly half of that cash came in the form of a single donation of £250,000 from a man named as Derek J Webb.

It also received £12,500 from Sir David Gilmour, a historian and writer, and son of Conservative former minister Ian Gilmour.

Labour received a total of £451,232 in donations in the same period.

A £200,000 donation from Usdaw, the shopworkers union, was the single largest amount which flowed into Labour’s coffers during the period.

Labour Together meanwhile gave a £54,751.94 donation to the party.

The think tank has been a vocal supporter of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership during his spell as leader of the opposition.

Its director Josh Simons was elected as Labour MP for Makerfield during the General Election.

Alongside the cash donation from Labour Together, a non-cash donation worth £21,480 was also listed from the think tank.

In total, Labour has raised more than £9 million in private donations during the first four weeks of the campaign.

The Conservatives have by contrast managed to raise approximately £1.5 million in the same time, with £378,945 received during the fourth week.

This includes financial backing from several companies, and donations via a lottery organised by an unincorporated association.

A series of donations from the National Conservative Draws Society totalled up to some £125,000 for the Tory war chest in the fourth week of campaigning.

Flowidea, a company whose directors include long-time Tory donor and banker Sir Henry Angest and his wife Dorothy, meanwhile gave £100,000 to the Conservative Party.

Donations received by the Green Party in the same week totalled some £120,000.