What will Reform spend its £72m war chest on?

Nigel Farage had barely moved on from the fallout over a Channel 4 undercover investigation into two senior party figures when Reform began breaking records of a rather different kind.

Crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne each gave the party £36m, taking Reform’s haul to £72m in the space of 48 hours. That is more than all UK political parties raised during the whole of 2025 combined.

The windfall has intensified the argument over how political parties are funded. Under current law, there is no general limit on how much a permissible donor can give to a UK political party.

The government has since announced plans to tighten the rules around political donations, while Farage has defended the gifts as “100% compliant with the law today”.

But there is another question: what does a political party actually do when £72m suddenly lands in its accounts?

Cleo Watson, the former No 10 adviser who worked on the Vote Leave campaign, has spent enough time inside political operations to have a few ideas.

First up: property.

“These parties spend a surprising amount of money on their headquarters,” Cleo said on the latest episode of In The Room. “There’ll be a big push, I suspect, to have a nice big, shiny Reform office.”

Her co-host Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary, said putting some of the money into assets could have another attraction.

“A building is a bit harder for Angela Rayner to take back.”

Then there are people.

Reform has pledged to use the money to hire the “brightest and best minds” to work on policy and put together what it says will be the most comprehensive plan for government ever.

Staffing is already one of the major costs faced by political parties, and permanent staff costs are generally not included within general election campaign spending limits.

For Cleo, however, Reform’s approach to campaign organisation could be more significant.

“They’ve very proudly said they're gonna spend this money on campaign organisers instead of the traditional model, which more volunteering than it is professional and paid for.

“That Reform are gonna shortcut all of that and buy people to campaign and organise in every single seat, that’s a new thing.”

Money could also go towards policy development, legal advice, campaign material, digital advertising and the wider machinery needed to fight elections across the country.

But Helen said Reform’s pledge to build a substantial policy operation raises a deeper question about how the party would approach government itself.

Reform’s head of government Danny Kruger has previously set out plans for a radical overhaul of Whitehall if the party takes power, including cutting civil service numbers and abolishing the Cabinet Office in its current form.

For Helen, a self-described “civil service nerd”, the combination of that agenda and Reform’s new financial firepower could be significant.

“This’ll be the first time in ages we’ve had a political party that is extremely against the civil service as a model and wants to spend money effectively circumnavigating them.

“That really is a game-changer.”

It may also represent a shift for a political movement built around Farage, who has moved between Ukip, the Brexit Party and Reform over the course of his career.

A £72m war chest gives Reform the means to invest in staff, organisers, property and policy expertise on a scale it has not previously been able to contemplate.

Helen said: “They’re absolutely here to stay.”

Listen to the full episode of In The Room on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch on YouTube.