Richard Tice rallies to the defence of Reform’s crypto ‘patriots’

Never in the field of British politics has so much been given to so many by so few. You’d have thought Nigel Farage would have wanted to explain Reform’s sudden windfall from Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo himself. To bask in the glory of the donations from two down-to-earth, anti-establishment crypto billionaires. Men who know what it’s like to graft, who know the meaning of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

There again, Nige is keen not to appear as a one-man band these days and he could do with some downtime to enjoy his own £5m handout. And besides, he’s got a police investigation into Reform party funding to worry about. Even so, it wasn’t the best of looks to send Richard Tice out on to the morning media round. Dicky may have his talents, but he keeps them well concealed. His main talent is the unfortunate ability to make Honest Bob Jenrick sound trustworthy. But he does always leave you guessing. Is he being wilfully stupid or is he naturally that half witted?

Dicky began with a howl of protest. No rules had been broken. He made that sound as if came as a surprise to him. I guess that’s an easy mistake for anyone to make. Everything was in the rules as they exist. Labour were mounting a coup against Reform for having passed legislation through the Commons that would prevent donors living overseas from giving more than £100K until they had lived in the UK for more than a calendar year, backdated to March 2026. You’d have thought Nige might have clocked this. But he probably hadn’t been in Westminster that day. And you can’t trust Dicky to be over the details.