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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said two big donations given to his party are "100% compliant with the law today", but was not able say whether they would be permissible if a rule change, currently being debated in Parliament, were passed.
Ministers are seeking to put a £100,000 annual cap on donations from British expats, backdated to 25 March 2026.
Farage argued the government should not retrospectively declare donations illegal and threatened to retaliate by limiting trade union donations, if elected PM.
Trade union leader Paul Nowak said there was no similarity between "care workers chipping in a few quid a year through their union and a party bought and paid for by billionaires."
Over the weekend, Reform announced that it had received two donations of £36m each from wealthy businessmen Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, who are both British but have until recently lived abroad.
Speaking to the BBC, Farage said there was "no question" their donations - the largest in British political history - were within the law "as it stands".
Asked if the two men were resident in the UK by 25 March, Farage said: "I'm not going into their particular details."
He went on to criticise the government's attempts to retrospectively declare some donations illegal, saying: "This cannot be."
"If the government was allowed to do this, you know what would happen? There would be a response the other way.
"We or the Conservatives would say 'if you're going to stop legitimate donors like this, we would say to the trade unions, you can't give money'."
Farage argued such a move would "collapse" the system of political funding and lead to taxpayers having to fund political parties, a system he said would be opposed by the British public.
Since 2020, Labour has received almost £43m from trade unions, who raise their money through individual workers' membership fees.
